


The Ties that Bind Us

by CelticGrace



Series: Katie [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Akuze, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-01-20 00:14:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 32,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1489633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticGrace/pseuds/CelticGrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not believing in her once nearly cost him everything.  He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.</p><p>Shepard as Hackett's daughter<br/>Pre-ME1 thru Post-ME3</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Family Ties](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/56359) by CelticGrace. 



> Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.
> 
> Beta: the lovely and talented pixelatix
> 
> Chapter-Specific Trigger Warning: discussions of implied rape

The summer had started ordinarily enough, but four weeks in and Jason Shepard knew something was _off_.  Historically, the relationship between his half-brother Marcus and their niece Katie had been volatile at best.  But lately, they'd been spending an inordinate amount of time together.  And the times they weren't together, Katie just wasn't acting like herself.  Jason was positive neither of them realized he'd noticed.

Just after closing time at the Argo, Jason's beach-side bar in Solana Beach, and he was busy cleaning up after a very long raucous night while Marcus sat at the bar, doing inventory.  They both looked up as someone unlocked the door; after closing, it was either Katie or Jason's son Ryan, though tonight he was supposed to be at a concert with his girlfriend.

After a moment, the door slid open and Katie walked in.  She tensed up the moment she saw Marcus.

“All right, that's it.”  Jason looked from one to the other.  “What the hell is going on between you two?”

Marcus shrugged and went back to the inventory list.  “No idea what you're talking about.”

Katie stood in the doorway for a moment before she came to an apparent decision.  She walked over and took down a picture of her mother and aunt that sat on the memorial shelf behind the bar and shoved it in Marcus' face.  “Tell him the truth.  Tell him how they _really_ died.”

“Is that what all this has been about, why you've been acting so _odd_ since you came down for vacation?” Jason asked, trying to wrench the picture from her hands.  “It's been twelve years, Katie.  Let it go.”

She growled softly and shook her head.  “It's been twelve years of _lies_ , Uncle Jason.  I'm tired of you and Daddy not believing Ryan and me.”

“You were three, Ryan was five. You were both traumatized and confused; you don't know _what_ you saw.”

“No, she's right, Jason.  I've been living a lie all these years,” Marcus said, handing the picture back to Katie, who looked startled by the admission.

She wasn't the only one.  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jason asked, more confused than ever.

Marcus got up and began pacing as he launched into a narrative.  His voice was eerily calm and he spoke as if he'd rehearsed what he was going to say many times but never thought he'd _actually_ say it to anyone.  “You and Steven had taken shore leave, said you'd wanted to surprise Ryan and Katie for their birthday.  Shannon and Lara had taken the kids to Mom and Dad's house and I was supposed to be on my way to pick you two up at the spaceport.”

“ _Supposed to_ being the key words,” Katie muttered angrily as she walked around the bar and sat down on a stool near the door.

Marcus continued as if she hadn't spoken.  “I drove a block or two, turned around and went back to the house.  I went in and shot them all.  I'd planned to make it look like I'd walked in on Dad killing everyone, but I'd forgotten Brent was coming by to finish the kids' tree house before the party.  He walked in as I was about to take the kids out.  He tackled me, got the gun away from me and shot me, then took off with the kids.  You may recall, he actually told the police the truth, but since he had the kids, the gun and his alibi was that he was alone in Mom and Dad's backyard, they didn't believe him.”

Silence descended over the bar as the meaning of Marcus' words sank in for Jason.  Finally he spoke, his voice rough with barely controlled rage.  “So you let a man go to prison for four murders he didn't commit while you walked around devil-may-care all these years?  _And_ you let Steven and me believe our children to be liars?  _Why_ , Marcus?”

“Because he was _jealous_ ,” Katie snapped.  Jason had nearly forgotten she was even still there.

Marcus shrugged.  “Pretty much.  You and Lara were always the favorites, our whole lives.  After you were born, and certainly after she was, I was virtually _ignored_.  And then when we grew up, you two got the perfect lives with the perfect families, not to mention you and Steven getting goddamn medals in the war.  And I was just... an afterthought.”

“I... I'm sorry you felt that way, Marcus.”  Jason frowned.  “But seriously, your _solution_ to that was to... kill everyone?”

“I'd wanted to take away everything that made you happy.  Wanted you to see what it was like being alone.”

“Alone?”  Jason frowned.  “I'd still have had –”  He shook his head.  “You are a fucking sick bastard!  You were planning to kill the kids too?”

Marcus rolled his eyes.  “That's what I meant by _take the kids out_ , idiot.”

Jason glanced at Katie.  “Did you know?”

She nodded.  “Why the hell did you think we were always so terrified of staying with him when you and Daddy were on missions, and why we were so relieved when you retired?”

“So would anyone like to tell me how you and Ryan _really_ got the scars on your face and his arm?”

“You really don't want to know,” she said softly.

“Tell me anyway,” Jason said, keeping a wary eye on Marcus, who had inched closer to Katie.

“Fine.  Don't say I didn't warn you.”  She sighed.  “We actually did fall into the glass coffee table.  But the _reason_... we got into a huge fight and he told me _I_ was the reason Marcus had killed everyone and why he wanted to kill us too.”

“He actually said that to you?”

She nodded.  “I lunged at him, and that's how we eventually ended up in the middle of the coffee table.”

“I'm gonna kill that little fuck,” Jason snarled.

She rolled her eyes.  “And that's why we never told you.  Deep down, like _really_ deep down, I knew he didn't really mean it, and he apologized after a couple of days.”

“This has all been _very_ fascinating,” Marcus said suddenly.  “But it's getting late and some of us,” Katie shuddered under the hand he put on her shoulder, “are much too young to be out of bed at this hour.”

“Hold on just a goddamn minute,” Jason growled.  “You're not going _anywhere_ , Marcus.  I'm calling the police.”

“Are you?  Are you _really_?”  Marcus reached out and yanked Katie from her bar stool by her braid before wrapping his hand around her throat, pulling her body flush with his as he backed up against the wall closest to the door.

“Are you fucking insane?  What the hell are you doing??”

“Leaving.”  Marcus drew the pistol he always kept on him whenever he worked in the bar and aimed it at Jason.  “With Katie.”

“The hell you are.”  Jason reached under the bar for his own pistol.  “Just let her go and we can work this out rationally.”

Marcus scoffed.  “Rational?  You?  Don't make me laugh, Jason.  And what do you think you're going to do with that?  You don't have a prayer of shooting me without hitting Katie first.”

Jason could see this wasn't going to end well for anyone, so he decided to keep Marcus talking as long as possible until he could think of... something.  “So what are you going to do, kill me?”

“Yes, actually.  No one would believe Katie if she told anyone about what happened here tonight.  You and Steven have made sure of that.  Doesn't matter though.  After I kill you, I'm going to take her with me and keep her as my pet until Steven comes looking for her.  Then I'm going to kill him too.”  Marcus tightened his grip on Katie's throat as he lightly grazed the knuckles of his gun-hand over her breasts and stomach, down to her thigh, causing her to shudder again.  As he spoke, his lips brushed the shell of her ear, seemingly purring his taunt at her.  “By now, I'm sure she realizes her mistake.  So I can do whatever I want to her and I know she'll never say another word to anyone.  Wouldn't want anyone else's blood on her hands.”

“You sick fuck!” Jason spat out.  “What the –”  He looked into Katie's eyes and saw the fury that had been blazing there had been replaced by a haunted look, coupled with pain and fear; this was not news to her.  “You've already done this to her before, haven't you?”

“Oh so many times,” Marcus said in a self-satisfied voice.

“Why didn't you say anything, Katie?”

Her only answer was a whimper as she tried unsuccessfully to pry Marcus' fingers from her throat.

“Who's she going to tell, Jason?” Marcus said with a snide smile as he raised the gun in Jason's direction and applied still more pressure to Katie's throat.  “The only one who might believe her is Ryan, and that wouldn't help her any.  If you didn't believe either of them back when they were children, why on earth would you believe them now?”

“You're a fucking psycho, you know that?” Jason snarled.

Marcus pulled the trigger.  “So I've been told.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comment and kudos :)

Admiral Steven Hackett was preparing to leave his quarters for a very early breakfast meeting with his officers when his terminal beeped with an incoming vid-comm hail. He was almost tempted to ignore it, until he saw the ident information: St. Luke's Hospital, Solana Beach.

He quickly hit the button to answer; after a tense few moments, the screen flickered to reveal his seventeen-year-old nephew, looking extremely pale and very worried.

“Ryan? What are you doing at the hospital? Is everything all right?” Hackett mentally slapped himself. _Of course everything isn't all right, Steven; it's barely 0600 and Ryan is at a_ _hospital_ _._

“No, not even slightly,” Ryan said. “I got home really late from my date with Sarah and found cops at the Argo. They said the silent alarm had been triggered, by the button under the counter, not by someone breaking in. When they got there, they found Dad behind the bar... he'd been shot.”

“Christ.... is he...?”

Ryan shook his head. “Too soon to tell, is what the doctors said. I called as soon as he came out of surgery. I'm waiting to go see him.” He sighed heavily. “That's not all, Uncle Steven.”

“There's more?”

“Katie's... missing.”

Hackett's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “What do you mean _missing_?”

“I mean she wasn't at the house or the bar before I left for the hospital and she hasn't answered a single one of my vid-chat hails or e-mails.” He looked away for a moment before he said, “I think Marcus took her, after he shot Dad.”

Hackett pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why would he... what makes you think Katie or Marcus were even there last night?”

“Because he usually helps Dad close on the weekends, especially during the summer when it's crazy busy, and when I'm out, she _always_ goes to the bar after closing.”

“Why?”

“Dunno. Just started doing it this summer.”

“And those are your only reasons for –”

“The picture of Mom and Aunt Lara, the one that's been on the wall since Dad opened the bar, was smashed on the floor.”

“That still doesn't prove Marcus had anything to do with anything.”

“Please, Uncle Steven. Just... fine, forget everything else. But when's the last time Katie didn't answer a vid-chat hail?”

“You... may have a point,” Hackett finally conceded. “Especially if it was from one of us. And she certainly wouldn't ignore multiple hails.”

“Exactly.”

“But that only proves that something happened to her, not that Marcus –”

“Who else could it have been? The only people who are ever there after closing are family. Period. If the alarm wasn't triggered by a break-in, it _had_ to have been Marcus.” Ryan narrowed his eyes. “Unless you're suggesting Katie –”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Hackett snapped. He sighed. “Fine. You just worry about your dad, all right? I'm going to call a friend who's good at tracking people. With any luck, he'll be able to figure out where Katie is.” 

* * *

> _From: Zaeed Massani_
> 
> _To: Steven Hackett_
> 
> _Subj: Found Them_
> 
> _Yes, Steven, I said them  . They're on the Citadel. It was just a little too bloody easy to find them, so either Marcus is a bigger fucking moron than I'd always taken him for, or he's expecting you to come find Katie yourself. _
> 
> _Attaching the coordinates to his "hideout."_
> 
> _Good luck and let me know if you need any more help._
> 
> _-ZM_
> 
> _PS: Not that you asked for my opinion, but I'm giving it anyway. Y ou are a bloody idiot for not seeing how much of a bastard Marcus has always been. And yes, I'll say the same damn thing to Jason when he's out of the hospital._

* * *

By the time Hackett made it to the Citadel, two days had passed since Ryan's call. And now, he was positive something had happened to Katie. Normally, they chatted at least once a day every day that either of them was away, but she hadn't responded to any of his messages or hails.

It didn't take long before he was standing in front of the apartment in the lower wards that Massani had indicated. A look of genuine surprise passed over Marcus' face when he opened the door, quickly replaced by a sneer.

“Something I can help you with, Steven?”

“Ryan called me a couple of days ago, said Jason had been shot.”

“I see. And this has what to do with me?”

Hackett rolled his eyes. “Your lack of caring about your brother is very telling, Marcus. And according to Ryan, it has everything to do with you.”

“You've never believed a word Ryan has ever said about me. Why start now?”

“Katie. You know damn well that she was there for her summer visit, had been since the beginning of May. I haven't heard from her since the day before Ryan called me.”

Marcus scoffed. “So? She's a fifteen-year-old girl. She's probably been busy with her friends. She –”

“She calls me every single day when she's staying with Jason, without fail,” Hackett said as he pushed his way past Marcus into the apartment. “The fact that she hasn't called me in two days means something is very wrong. And now that I think of it, the very fact that _she_ wasn't the one who called me about Jason tells me she's in trouble.” The Admiral regarded his former brother-in-law suspiciously. “Where'd you get those bruises, Marcus?”

The man's answer of “bar fight... last night... two turians” came just a little too readily for Hackett's liking.

“Where's my daughter, Marcus?” he growled.

“I don't know where the bitch is,” Marcus said. “And if I did, I don't know why I would tell you.”

Hackett chose to ignore, for the moment, the _bitch_ comment. “So if I sent her a hail right now, I wouldn't hear her omni-tool beeping?”

Marcus looked around for a moment before answering. “Nope.”

“That's as good as a goddamn confession in blood,” Hackett said as he raised his arm to bring up his omni-tool.

“That's far enough, Steven,” Marcus snarled, reaching for the gun in the belt of his pants.

Before Marcus could do more than raise the weapon, Hackett's other hand came up with his own pistol. He fired a shot straight at Marcus' chest.

As Marcus crashed to the floor, Hackett holstered his gun, stepping around the body and into the hallway. He checked each room of the apartment, calling out to his daughter but heard no response.

He opened the last door and his heart stopped.

His beloved Katie, covered in cuts and bruises from head to foot, was gagged and shackled at her wrists and ankles to the metal headboard of the small bed on the other side of the room. As he walked towards her, she shrank back, cowering into the very corner of the mattress, trying to get as far away from him… Hackett shook his head in thought. He wasn't the one she was afraid of, not really, though he definitely wasn't her favorite person by a long shot. No, she was still trying to get away from Marcus. It looked as if the bastard had beat the hell out of her and done only God knew what else to her. However, Hackett knew Marcus' bruises hadn't come from any bar fight with turians. That would have landed him in the hospital or the morgue. They'd been from Katie, fighting back... at least at first.

Hackett knelt beside the bed, looking at her with concern as he said, “Sweetheart, I'm not going to hurt you.” She stared at him for a moment, as if she was wondering if she could trust him, before slowly nodding. He took this as consent and sat on the edge of the bed; he gently tugged the gag out of her mouth and set about hacking the locks on the shackles.

As soon as her hands were free, she hauled back and punched him square in the jaw. Her fear of Marcus had obviously ebbed away, leaving only the anger he knew she had been holding onto for the last twelve years.

Though the hit was hard (no one had ever claimed Katie _hit like a girl_ , and come away unscathed), Hackett didn't flinch. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and gently pulled her onto his lap as she collapsed against him and dissolved into tears, her anger finally giving way to sheer exhaustion.

“I more than deserved that,” he said quietly. “I know I will never be able to make up for everything I've done wrong all these years, Katie, but I am sorry I ever doubted you about Marcus, and for all the hell he put you through because of that.”

Katie whispered something against his chest that sounded suspiciously like “it's my fault.”

Hackett pulled back and gently lifted her face with one hand so that he was looking into her eyes, the same clear ice blue as his own. “You can't tell me you blame yourself for this.”

She nodded. “I-I provoked him. I just wanted him tell someone the truth, finally. And he did. He told Uncle Jason. A-and now he's dead because of me,” she sobbed.

“He's not dead,” he said soothingly. “I've been talking to Ryan every couple of hours the last couple of days since he called to tell me what happened. Jason will be in the hospital for awhile, but he's going to be fine. He hasn't been able to talk yet though, so we didn't know exactly what happened beyond him getting shot. But Ryan was completely convinced it was because of Marcus. He's a large part of the reason I found you.”

Katie threw her arms around Hackett's neck and hugged him. “Daddy, I'm sorry,” she said tearfully as she laid her head on his shoulder. They stayed that way for several minutes, Hackett gently stroking her hair as she cried.

Finally, she took a deep shuddering breath and started telling him everything that had taken place at the Argo two days earlier.

“As soon as Uncle Jason was down, Marcus dragged me back to his place,” she said when she was done, her voice trembling slightly. “We came here a couple of hours later.”

Hackett didn't say anything for a few minutes. On the outside, he was maintaining control of his emotions, for Katie's benefit, but inside, he was shaking with fury at the thought of what his little girl had been put through.

He swept a lock of her dark red hair from her face and gently kissed her forehead. “I'm just glad you're alive, sweetheart. And that I finally found you.”

“Well at least next time, there won't _be_ anyone left to find her,” said a weak but cold voice, startling both of them. They looked around to see Marcus leaning against the doorway, one hand clutching his pistol, the other pressed against the wound where Hackett's bullet had struck, higher than he'd intended. “I'm going to go back to California to finish off my brother and his meddling son and then I'll be able to keep Katie as my plaything forever.”

Hackett got up, pushing Katie behind him as he drew his gun. “No, Marcus. You're never laying a hand on my daughter ever again,” he growled. “This ends here and now.”

Marcus shrugged. “Whatever. Your funeral, Steven.”

Two shots rang out followed moments later by a third.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comment and kudos :)

Jeff Moreau slowly opened his eyes and blinked a few times, trying to get his bearings.  After a few moments, he remembered where he was and why: in the med-bay for emergency surgery because he'd broken his leg.  Again.

_Fucking brittle bones.  This is going to be a long, very boring summer._

He slowly turned his head to the left, looking around the med-bay and was very surprised to see his best friend occupying the bed next to his.  Last he'd heard, Katie had been on Earth, visiting her cousin and uncle like she did every summer.

Beneath the dark red curls that spilled across her pillow, a myriad of bruises in various stages of healing joined the childhood scars that crossed her freckled complexion.

Jeff looked across the bed to see Admiral Hackett sitting beside it, holding Katie's left hand in both of his.  He remembered his father saying the Admiral had left the ship more than a week ago, though no one had known why.  But whatever had happened to Katie, clearly he hadn't left her side in several days.  He looked beyond exhausted, the bags under his eyes and graying stubble on his chin aging him considerably.

Jeff groaned and slowly sat up in his bed.

Hackett looked up and gave him a tight smile.  “Afternoon, Jeff.  Glad to see one of you is finally awake.  Are you in any pain?”

Jeff shook his head.  “No, sir.  Not really.  Not yet anyway.”

“Your father is coming back in a couple of hours.  I told him since I was here for the foreseeable future, you weren't going to be alone when you woke up so he should get some rest.”

“Thank you, sir.  Can I ask, what happened to Katie?  Was she here when I came in for surgery?”

Hackett shook his head.  “We've only just got back a couple of hours ago, while you were _in_ surgery.  Came in on a medical transport from the Citadel.  As for what happened, Marcus finally got his revenge.”

“You mean he finally tried to make good on his promise to kill her and Ryan?”

“Oh, knew about that, did you?”  Hackett sighed.  “Don't know why I should be surprised.  Doubt you two have had any secrets since the day you met.  But no, it wasn't that.  Honestly, I think somehow that may have made this easier if that were the case.  He nearly made good on his apparent promise to kill Jason and myself, actually.  Jason is in Solana Beach, recovering from a shot that came damn close to his heart.  Katie on the other hand,” he swallowed hard and sighed.  “Katie took two bullets that were meant for me.  One in the chest and one in the abdomen.”

“Damn,” Jeff muttered.

“Marcus went down a moment after that with a bullet between the eyes,” Hackett said darkly.

“Good.  Does this mean, sir, that you and Jason finally know, and more importantly _believe_ , the whole truth?”

Hackett nodded.  “Jason got it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.  That's what started the whole thing.  Katie somehow got Marcus to tell Jason the truth; she wasn't even sure how she did it.  Then Marcus decided Jason had to die, so he shot him, kidnapped Katie and…” another sigh was pulled from the Admiral's lips as a haunted look passed over his face.  It was gone as quickly as it had come.  “I found her a week ago, tied up in an apartment Marcus had rented on the Citadel.  She recounted to me the events that led up to that moment.  He came back in just after that; I'd shot him and thought he was dead,” he said bitterly.  “As he fired at me, Katie pushed me out of the way.”

“I'm... not surprised,” Jeff said quietly.  “She may have been carrying a lot of hurt and anger with her all these years, sir.  But through that, she's always loved you.”

Hackett nodded.  “I know.”

“Steven!” a sharp voice barked from the end of the med-bay.  Hackett and Jeff looked up to see Dr. River, the ship's chief medical officer, hurrying from her office, looking furious.  “Why didn't you tell me one of my patients was awake?”

“Sorry, Melody.  We… had to talk,” Hackett said defensively.  Jeff nodded in agreement.  “I assure you, I would have called you if something was wrong.”

The doctor rolled her eyes.  “Did you go to medical school, Steven?  No, as I recall you went into officers training.  So you'll excuse me if I don't trust your judgment calls on _my_ patients.”   Jeff tried unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter at this statement and she glared at him before turning back to the Admiral.  “You need sleep,” she added in a kinder tone.  “Proper sleep in your bed, not sitting beside Kathrine's.”

“I can't leave her, Melody, not until I know for sure she'll be all right.”

“Steven, you won't be doing her any favors if you go down when she needs you most.”

Hackett tried again.  “But –”

“I can sit with her, sir,” Jeff offered.  “With your permission, of course,” he added hastily as he looked hopefully at Dr. River.

She nodded.  “That's fine with me, as long as your scans check out.  I certainly don't want her waking up alone, and you're stuck in here for the long haul as it is.  Might as well do something useful.”

Hackett sighed.  “Fine.  And thank you, Jeff.  Still, you should know I'm doing this under protest, Melody.”

Dr. River chuckled lightly.  “I'd wonder who the hell had replaced you if you weren't, Steven,” she teased.  “But that's the beauty of being a ship's doctor; I can order even you around, when necessary.  Now get out of here.  I don't want to see you back here for at least twelve hours.”  Hackett looked as if he was going to say something again and the doctor added, “Unless Kathrine wakes up.”

Hackett leaned down and kissed Katie's forehead before he nodded curtly at Dr. River and Jeff and left the med-bay.

Jeff looked sadly at his life-long best friend as Dr. River began examining him.  “How long has she been like that?” he asked quietly.

The doctor sighed heavily.  “She's been out for close to six days now.  She slipped into the coma shortly after she came out of surgery.”

“Will she be okay?” he asked in alarm.

“Oh, yes,” she said confidently.  “It's only a matter of time before she wakes up again.  The doctors on the Citadel wouldn't have allowed her to be moved if there had been any indication she were in danger.  Her body has been through so much trauma, and in such a short period of time, it just needed the uninterrupted rest.  I'm kind of hoping she stays unconscious for at least another six to eight hours, so the Admiral will get some sleep.”

“I guess he told you what happened?”

She nodded.  “Yes.  Brave thing she did.  Don't know many fifteen-year-olds who would take a bullet for _anyone_ , much less for the father they've had a strained relationship with their whole life.  Then again, I've honestly never met anyone quite like Kathrine Hackett.”  She cleared her throat.  “All right, your scans are clear, so you can sit with her.”

Jeff nodded.  “Thanks, Doc.”

She helped him get out of bed and walk to the chair between the two beds.  He took Katie's hand and gently squeezed it as he settled in for a long vigil.

* * *

_Nine hours later…_

Katie shuddered as she finally woke; when the fog of sleep lifted, she realized in a panic that she didn't know where she was, but it was obvious she wasn't in Marcus' apartment anymore.  She felt a hand holding hers and looked down to see Jeff asleep with his head on her hand, her fingers entwined with his.  She squeezed his hand and he raised his head after a moment.

“Hey cutie,” he said with a small smile.

“Jeff?  Where am I?” she asked hoarsely.

He looked at her with concern.  “You're home, Katie.”

“I can't… I can't remember…”  Her eyes filled with tears.  “Where's my dad?  Is he okay?”

Jeff reached out and tucked a curl behind her ear.  “Shh,” he whispered soothingly.  “Your dad's fine.  The doc made him leave to get some sleep.”

She frowned.  “Why are _you_ here?”

He shrugged.  “Same old, same old.  Another day, another accidental broken bone.  Look, I swore to both your dad and Dr. River that I'd let them know when you woke up,” he said as he typed a message into his omni-tool.  He kissed her cheek and very slowly got up.  She reached out and grabbed his wrist, her eyes wide with panic.  He gently pried her fingers from his wrist, kissed her hand and said, “I'll be right back, Katie.  I promise.  I'm not leaving, just going to get the doc.”

He grabbed his crutches and slowly limped to the end of the med-bay and knocked on the door.  A second later, Dr. River came out and they slowly walked back to Katie's bed together, talking in low voices.  Katie guessed Jeff was telling the doctor about their conversation and how long she'd been awake.

Dr. River smiled as she came over to the side of the bed.  “You have no idea how happy I am to see you awake, Kathrine.  How do you feel?”

“Groggy and hella sore,” Katie said, taking Jeff's hand as he resumed his seat on the other side of her bed.  “Memory's a lot foggy too.”

“That's perfectly normal,” the doctor said reassuringly as she began doing scans.  “You've been unconscious for close to a week.  I wouldn't expect you to be completely clear-thinking the moment you woke up.”

Katie was dubious but nodded.

Dr. River looked across at Jeff.  “You sent a message to the Admiral?”

“Yeah.  But since he's supposed to be asleep, I dunno –”

“I'm right here,” Hackett said from the doorway.  He looked at Katie and smiled.  “Hi, sweetheart.  How are you?”

“Okay, I guess,” she said.  Then she frowned.  “Daddy, what happened to Marcus?”

“He's really dead this time,” he said darkly as he sat next to her bed.  “I promise.”

“Thank God.”

Dr. River cleared her throat.  “Did you sleep, Steven?” she asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.  “You certainly don't look like a man who has just woken up.  Though I will admit you do look more rested than you did before.”

“I think I slept for about seven hours,” Hackett said.  “But, I've been talking to Jason for the last hour.”

Katie looked at her father.  “Is he okay?”

Hackett smiled.  “Yes, sweetheart, he's fine.  He's out of the hospital, resting at home, and his doctor said he'll be able to travel soon.  He and Ryan will meet us when we dock at Arcturus in a week.”

“And what about me?” Katie asked, looking at Dr. River.

“If you stay out of trouble, you and Jeff will both be able to leave by the time we get to Arcturus.”

Hackett chuckled.  “Melody, remember who you're talking to.  These two will be causing trouble within the hour.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comment :)

_The peace treaty with the turians had been signed and the war was officially over._ _Everyone was on their way home._

 _Suddenly, the shuttle was on the ground and the_ _soldiers_ _were at the gate.  Floods of_ _men and women_ _being greeted by their loved ones.  Steven was standing with Jason, scanning the crowds for any sign of a familiar face, when_ _he saw_ _a_ _tiny turquoise-and-white polka dot dress with dark red pigtails hurtling towards them;_ _he caught it just as it_ _squealed and launch_ _ed itself at his chest._ _Parting_ _the mass of_ _curls_ _the pigtails had become, Steven_ _found himself looking at_ _a grinning_ _Katie._

 _“Daddy!”_ _She squealed again_ _.  “I miss'd you.”_

 _He_ _smiled and kissed the top of her head_ _.  “I missed you too, sweetheart.”  He_ _glanced_ _over and saw Jason ha_ _ving_ _a similar reunion with_ _a camo sweatshirt and mop of brown hair that was_ _Ryan._ _Looking_ _past Katie,_ _he_ _saw his father-in-law Ben standing to the side, smirking.  Steven shook his head with a laugh as he switched kids with Jason, saying hello to his nephew._

 _“Lieutenants.”  Ben s_ _napped_ _a salute as the two soldiers, each with their own child atop their shoulders, walked up to him._

 _“Hey, Dad,_ _”_ _Jason said as he returned the salute, Steven doing the same.  “Um... not that we're not glad to see_ _ you _ _but_ _–”_

_“Where are our wives?” Steven finished with a smirk._

_Ben chuckled.  “The ladies are at home planning your welcome home party.  The three of us got kicked out._ _”_

_Jason raised an eyebrow.  “Dare we ask why?”_

_“Don't_ _look at_ _me.  Ask your children.”_

 _“Me_ _e_ _maw kicked_ _ her _ _out for being dis... disr... loud,” Ryan said, glaring at Katie._

 _“_ _ He _ _was being loud too!” she protested.  Loudly._

 _Steven and Jason rolled their eyes.  “And you, Dad?” Jason asked as they_ _followed him_ _to the skycar lot.  “What'd you do to get kicked out?”_

_Ben shrugged.  “I believe the words 'too many cooks' and 'always underfoot' may have been used.”_

* * *

Hackett was suddenly awakened by an incessant drumming noise.  He looked up and was startled to see Dr. River standing on the other side of his desk, her arms folded and tapping her foot impatiently.

He raised an eyebrow.  “Yes?”

She frowned.  “You have an odd look on your face, Steven.  Are you all right?”

“I'm... fine.  Just a dream, a memory actually.  The day we came back from the war.  One of the last good days we all had as a whole family.”  He sighed.  “It's not the first time I've had that one in the last week and a half.”

“I can imagine.”

He scrubbed a hand across his face and sat up more fully at his desk.  “So... what, um... why are you here, Melody?”

“Oh.  Right.  They're gone,” the doctor said.  “Kathrine and Jeff.  Just... left the med-bay.”

The Admiral bit the inside of his cheek, trying to keep a straight face.  “I tried to warn you, Melody.  They've been getting into copious amounts of trouble since the day they met on their first day of kindergarten.  It's also not the first time they've broken out of a medical facility.  Hospitals make Katie _itch_ , she says; the few times she's had to be in one, she's gotten out before she was supposed to.  Though she also does tend to break _in_ to see Jeff when he's had to be alone.”

She glared at him.

“What?  Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I have patients to take care of.  I can't go off and find them.”

“They _are_ your patients, Melody.  And, you're not the only medical officer on this ship.”

“I believe they may have been the ones to help Kathrine and Jeff escape in the first place.  He wouldn't be getting far quickly on his own, and she's not going to be much help with as much pain medication as she's on.”

Hackett rolled his eyes.  “You can't use the ship's VI to find them?”  He shook his head.  He knew what was coming as soon as he said the words.

“Kathrine left a note saying that she'd disabled their locators.”

“Of course she did.”  He sighed again.  “Fine.  I'll go.  Not like I need _sleep_ or anything,” he grumbled as he stood up and walked past her.

Twenty minutes later, he stood in the doorway of his own quarters.  He'd found Katie and Jeff, but whatever trouble Dr. River thought they'd be in, they weren't in it.  Instead, Jeff was sitting in the overstuffed loveseat, his leg propped up on an ottoman; he had his arms wrapped carefully around Katie as she curled up against him.  To the untrained eye, they'd fallen asleep watching a vid, but Hackett quickly spotted the chips and cards hastily shoved in between the cushions.  Obviously, they'd been playing poker before he walked in.

He shook his head and chuckled to himself as he stepped back out into the hallway to call Dr. River.

“I found them,” he said quietly.

“Where?  Where the bloody hell are they?” the irate doctor screeched.

“Relax, Melody.  They're fine,” Hackett said calmly.

“Fine?  What did I say about making judgment calls on my patients?”

“You're the one who didn't want to take the time to come find them,” he said pointedly.

Dr. River growled.  “Where are they, Admiral?”

“They're safe and surprisingly not actually getting into any trouble.  They're... asleep.”  He knew there would be hell to pay if she found out what they'd _actually_ been doing, innocent as it was, and they were going to be in enough trouble for breaking out of the med-bay.

She huffed.  “That doesn't answer my question.”

“If you're so damn interested in where they are, ask the VI where _I_ am right now,” Hackett snapped.  “But you'd better do it quickly, because I'm going back to my office.  I have to go yell at my yeoman for letting you in in the first place.”

* * *

 

As the door slid shut and the Admiral's footsteps retreated back down the hallway, Katie cracked one eye open and lifted her head slightly.  “All right, coast is clear,” she whispered.

“Thank God it was just your dad,” Jeff said, shifting a bit to sit up more fully in the loveseat.

Katie nodded as she carefully slid to the floor to retrieve a few chips that had fallen under the ottoman.  “Yeah.  If the doc had been with him, she'd be dragging us back to the med-bay by our ears right now.”

“True.”  He began reshuffling the cards.  “Ya know, sometimes she's nice, like the other day when she let me sit with you before you woke up; other times, I'm surprised we're even allowed to _look_ at each other.”

She giggled as she got up and settled back in the seat, sitting cross-legged beside him.  “After this, we _won't_.  She'll confiscate our omni-tools and everything.  Totally worth it for an hour of peace though.”

He nodded.  “Definitely.  All right, where were we?  My deal or yours?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comment :)

Ryan stood in the docking bay, watching as everyone left the ship and made their way onto various parts of the station. When the crowds finally thinned down to next to nothing, he saw his uncle making his way towards him. Alone.

“Aren't you forgetting someone, Uncle Steven?” he asked as they shook hands.

Hackett chuckled. “I could ask you the same thing, Ryan. Where's your father?”

“One of his old marine buddies from back in the day just got stationed here. He's giving him a tour, though I didn't think it had been  _ that _ long since we'd been here.” Ryan crossed his arms over his chest. “So. Where's Katie?”

“Getting a lecture from Dr. River. The Trouble Twins broke out of the med-bay a couple of days ago and she's been fuming ever since.” He turned around and started walking back toward the docking tube.

“So you just left them in there with her?” Ryan asked as he ran to catch up.

Hackett shrugged. “I got a lecture of my own when I tried to tell her it was time to leave.”

Ryan snorted with laughter. “Why?”

“She may have found out I lied about what they –” Hackett's words were cut off as they, quite literally, ran into Jeff and Katie on their way off of the ship.

As the Admiral carefully steadied Jeff and his crutches, Ryan kept Katie from falling by pulling her into a bear hug.

Ryan watched as his uncle and Jeff slowly walked on to the station and then he pulled Katie into a tighter hug.

“Thank you,” she whispered after they'd stood in silence for awhile.

“For what?”

“For... whatever it was that you said to Daddy that convinced him to check Marcus' apartment. He said you were the reason he found me.”

Ryan sighed. “That was –”

Someone cleared their throat. The cousins looked over to see Hackett had returned and had found Jason who was standing by, waiting to talk to Katie.

“Not yet, Dad,” Ryan growled. He didn't really know why, but he suddenly felt fiercely protective of Katie. He'd spent the last two weeks worrying about both her and his father, wondering if he was going to lose them both. But now, the anger he'd held onto for the last twelve years decided to surface.

“Ryan? What's wrong?” Jason asked.

“What's  _ wrong _ , Dad? Really?” Ryan asked. “You're joking, right?”

Hackett and Jason looked at each other. Katie said nothing.

“Because of Marcus, may he rot in hell, the four of us are all that is left of our entire family,” Ryan said quietly. “But because of  _ you two –” _

“Ryan, stop,” Katie said. “Yes, Marcus is to blame for everything that happened twelve years ago. But everything that happened at the bar...”

“Started because they didn't believe us and Brent,” Ryan insisted. “Katie, that wasn't your fault. None of it.”

“We were kids,” she said quietly. “And they had no reason  _ not _ to believe Marcus.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Sure, shoot four people execution style in the back of the head and hit the fifth in the fucking shoulder. That makes so much sense.”

“I... can't... I can't do this, Ryan,” Katie said as she ducked out of his embrace. The others watched as she ran down into the docking bay and disappeared into the crowds on the station.

* * *

 

> _ Text Chat _
> 
> _ From: Katie _
> 
> _ To: Jeff _
> 
> _ 13:45 K: I’m on the run. _
> 
> _ 13:47 J: Already? You just got home. _
> 
> _ 13:50 J: Where are you? _
> 
> _ 14:00 J: Kit-Kat? You there? _
> 
> _ 14:01 K: I'm wandering around. _
> 
> _ 14:01 K: Trying to think of a place they won’t automatically think to look. _
> 
> _ 14:02 J: What happened? _
> 
> _ 14:10 K: I'm at Kirby Dalton Park, by your place. _
> 
> _ 14:11 J: On my way. _
> 
> _ 14:12 User Disconnected. _

* * *

Katie was sitting up against the maple tree in the center of the park, her head resting on her knees, when she heard Jeff’s tell-tale shuffle.  He eased down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asked after they'd sat in silence for awhile.

“Apparently, Ryan is... well, you know he's always been kinda angry, ever since... I can remember. Since... that day,” she said, talking to her knees. “But today, he started yelling at my dad and Uncle Jason and... then we started yelling at each other and... I couldn't take it anymore so I just... left. The last time Ryan and I got into a fight was when I was four, the whole coffee table incident. I guess we were long overdue for another one.”

“Yelling about what?” Jeff asked.

“Ryan was trying to say that what happened two weeks ago was ultimately Daddy and Uncle Jason's fault. That if they'd just believed us twelve years ago, none of this would have happened.”

“And?”

She sighed. “And I said it just wasn't reasonable that they were going to believe two kids –”

“Their  _ own _ kids,” Jeff said.

“Whatever. The fact remains that we were just kids.”

“So if that's your line of thinking now, what the hell prompted you to confront Marcus at the bar?”

“I... don't know.”

“I do.”

Jeff and Katie looked up to see Ryan standing beside the tree.

She glared up at him. “Did Daddy tell you I was here?”

Ryan grinned. “Maybe.”

“So much for 'someplace they won't automatically look,' genius,” Jeff said with a smirk. He kissed her on the cheek and then looked up at Ryan. “Give me a hand will you? I'll give you two some time.”

Ryan carefully hauled Jeff to his feet and then sat next to Katie as Jeff started back towards his apartment.

“So, you were saying?” she said as she leaned her head on Ryan's arm.

“Back then, we both thought the fact that we were their kids meant they should just automatically believe us, whether the cops did or not. Plus, we were telling them the exact same thing Brent was telling them, so that should do it. I guess we believed in  _ majority rules _ .”

“You'd think we would have gotten smarter as we got older and realized that's not the way the world works.”

“Reasonable people would have done that, yes. But we've been so blinded by anger for the last twelve years, we couldn't see past that. We couldn't see that it just wasn't reasonable for our dads or the cops to believe kids,  _ or _ the guy who'd 'kidnapped' us and had the murder weapon, over the adult 'witness.'”

“Yeah, I guess. So, are they mad?”

“At you, of course not. At me, very.”

Katie grinned. “Sorry.”

Ryan stood up again. “Are you done running? They may not be mad at you but they are worried about you.”

She rolled her eyes as he hauled her to her feet. “Surprised they sent you then. They weren't worried there'd be another  _ coffee table incident _ ?”

He chuckled. “I think they trust we've matured beyond that, if only just. Thank you  _ so _ much for mentioning the reason behind that, by the way,” he added sarcastically. “My dad has been yelling at me about that since yours called to say you'd finally woken up.”

“Yeah, I didn't really mean to...” she sighed. “I was on a roll and once the truth about everything starting coming out, it’s like it couldn't be stopped. Basically, it was like a reflex; he asked the question, so I answered it.”

Ryan wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they walked towards the Hacketts' apartment. “It's okay. It would have come out eventually, I'm sure. Now walk faster. My dad's exceptionally pissed at me since he hasn't even gotten to say 'boo' to you yet.”

When Katie and Ryan got back to her apartment, they found their fathers pacing anxiously.

“It's all right. Look. Nobody's got glass shards embedded anywhere,” Ryan said as he held out his arms and Katie turned her head to both sides to show neither of them had any new injuries.

Hackett and Jason both rolled their eyes. 

Katie was grateful when Ryan gave her a little nudge in Jason's direction, since her feet seemed be glued to the ground, before he and her father made a quick exit.

Jason looked at Katie, who looked away. He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her. She immediately burst into tears.

“I thought you were dead,” she said after awhile. “I'm sorry. If I hadn't provoked Marcus –”

“If you hadn't provoked him, then he'd still be... how long, Katie?” When she didn't answer, he put a finger under her chin to raise her head up so she was looking at him. “How long had it been going on?”

She tried to look away but couldn't. “F-four weeks,” she whispered. “It started a couple of days into my summer visit.”

“The whole goddamn time? Christ,” he muttered. “I knew you two were spending an unusual amount of time together but...” He pulled her back in and tightened his arms around her for a moment. “That son of a – bastard deserved so much more than a simple shot between the eyes. He needed a goddamn beating.”

“I...” She didn't really know how to respond to that. However she had caught his  _ creative _ wording. She pulled back and canted her head as she looked up at him with a smirk. “I'm sorry, did you almost call your mother a  _ bitch _ ?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Face reference for Ryan: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/357262182912922309/
> 
> Face reference for Jason: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/357262182921244480/


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comment :)

Hackett shot up in bed when he heard a piercing scream, followed by a loud crash and the sounds of a struggle. He ran into Katie's bedroom and found her on the floor, fighting to get out of her sheets and blanket. He knelt on the floor beside her and helped her get disentangled, dodging her still-flailing arms as he tried to calm her down.

“Sweetheart, what happened?” he asked gently as she finally stopped fighting and he pulled her into his arms.

“Dr. River told me I should start trying to wean myself off the pain meds,” she said quietly. “But apparently that's the only thing that's stopping the nightmares.”

“Nightmares about Marcus?” he asked carefully.

She nodded. She suddenly stood up and started pacing.

He sat on the edge of her bed and watched her for a few minutes. Finally, curiosity got the best of him. “Katie, what are you doing?”

She stopped so suddenly, he had the feeling that she'd forgotten he was even there. “Remember when...” She sighed. “Of course you do... stupid question... when I told you what happened at the bar...” She trailed off again and didn't say anything for several minutes.

“Sweetheart, whatever it is you're trying to tell me, if you don't want to say it, it's okay.”

She shook her head. “Four weeks, Daddy. It wasn't just... just the two days on the Citadel. It was...” She sank to the floor, her back against the wall. “T-the entire four weeks I was staying at Uncle Jason's.”

Hackett frowned. “ _What_ was four...” He suddenly realized exactly what she meant. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. He got up and stalked out of the room. “I'm gonna kill him... both of them.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Katie scramble up from the floor and she grabbed his arm. “Daddy, it wasn't their fault,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears.

He shook his head as he turned to wrap his arms around her. “I'm sorry, sweetheart, but you're going to have to explain that to me. Because I'm having a very hard time figuring out how this could have happened for four goddamn weeks without one or both of them noticing something was going on.”

“Uncle Jason did. He didn't know what was going on 'til that night at the bar, but he said he knew something was weird.”

“And yet he did nothing.”

“Do about _what_? The only thing he noticed was that we had been spending more time together than usual.”

Hackett thought of something else. “Shouldn't they have noticed if you had bruises or...” He sighed. He didn't really want to think about what Marcus had actually done to her.

She shook her head. “For one, he didn't really... he didn't beat me until the two days on the Citadel. But any bruises I _had_ , I easily covered with makeup; scratches were written off as how much I suck at rollerblading.”

He pulled back to look at her and raised an eyebrow.

She shrugged. “What? Have you ever seen me trying to skate? It's not pretty.” She sighed. “I don't know what to do, Daddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can't keep taking pain pills, and I can't just replace them with sleeping pills. And, though God knows I've tried, I can't just stop sleeping altogether.”

“Did you sleep _at all_ while you were at Jason's?”

“Yes,” she said quickly and walked past him into the living room where she curled up at one end of the couch.

Hackett frowned as he followed her. Something was off. He sat down on the coffee table and leaned his elbows on his knees. “How were you getting to sleep?”

She neither looked at him nor answered his question.

“Katie? I'm not angry with you sweetheart.”

She sighed. “I know, Daddy. I'm kinda angry with myself, actually. I'm just... I've dug myself into a hole that I can't get out of.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have to stop taking the pain meds eventually. I know that. But... the way I was getting to sleep at Uncle Jason's wasn't any better.”

“Which was?” he prompted gently.

“Whiskey.”

He put his head in his hands. “I'm really going to kill him,” he growled. “I swear to God.”

“And this is why I didn't want to tell you.”

He looked up at her again. “Please, please don't try and tell me that Jason didn't notice his whiskey had started going missing.”

She shook her head. “If it had been from the bar, he probably wouldn't have, since Marcus did inventory; but since I was using the bottles in Uncle Jason's apartment, I'm sure he noticed. He _probably_ assumed it was Ryan who was drinking it.”

“And the Parent of the Year Award goes to Jason Shepard,” Hackett said, rolling his eyes. “You're not going back next summer.”

“Daddy! That's not fair. It wasn't Uncle Jason's fault.”

“He didn't even notice you were drunk, Katie.”

“I _wasn't_ ,” she protested. “I only drank a couple of shots every night before I went to bed. By the time I got up, the effects had worn off.” She sighed and stretched out on the couch. “Can we talk about this later, Daddy? I'm really tired.”

“I know, sweetheart. Do you think you'll be able to sleep without the pain medication tonight or do you want to take it?”

She looked up at him with what looked like mock surprise. “You are actually encouraging me to defy doctor's orders?”

“Orders from Dr. River? Most definitely.” He chuckled. “You said she told you to _start_ weaning off the medication. Well, you tried. It didn't work. Yet.” He went into the kitchen to get her pills and a glass of water. He handed them to her and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “You'll try again tomorrow.”

“And if it doesn't work then?”

Hackett smiled as he sat in the recliner beside the couch. “Patience. You'll get there eventually. But no more whiskey.”


	7. Chapter 7

Though he hated the circumstances surrounding it, Hackett was quite thankful that the first summer Katie and Jeff had ever spent together, they were supposed to take it easy. He wasn't sure he or the Moreaus could have handled the amount of trouble their children would have gotten into if they'd been healthy, considering what they managed to accomplish on the average weekend during the school year.

Since the order came from their regular doctors on Arcturus and not Dr. River, against whom they seemed to have a vendetta, they begrudgingly agreed to behave. The pair spent most of the summer hunkered down in the middle of the Moreau's living room, watching marathons of military TV and movie vids.

When school finally started, nothing changed except that Jeff reported Katie was more skittish around everyone. But they finally settled back into a routine and everything was fine after a couple of weeks.

As the holidays rolled around, the Hacketts and the Moreaus spent a pleasant Thanksgiving together.  Jason and Ryan came back to the station for Christmas and things got tense when Hackett told Jason he should have done something to protect Katie if he suspected there was something wrong.  Once again, she ran away, taking refuge at the Moreaus.  Hackett received a scathing call from Mrs. Moreau, during which she informed him that Katie had asked if they would adopt her.  Though Katie assured him it was a joke made in the heat of the moment, it still stung, especially when she told him that Mrs. Moreau had actually said yes.

Though there was still a bit of tension after Jason and Ryan returned home, the remainder of the holiday season passed by without further incident.  

The second semester of Katie and Jeff’s sophomore year went along much the same as the first, though Hackett noticed a gradual increase in the time Katie spent away from home.  He took that as a sign things were back to normal, or as much as they ever could be.  Her schoolwork wasn’t suffering for it, so he let it be.

Therefore he was surprised, and more than a bit wary, when he received a chat request from Jeff late one Friday afternoon in April.  The only time Jeff ever messaged him was if he was worried about Katie.

* * *

 

 

> _Text Chat_
> 
> _From: Jeff Moreau_
> 
> _To: Steven Hackett_
> 
> _15:52 JM : Sorry to bother you, sir, but I need to talk to you about Katie._
> 
> _15:54 SH: Is she all right?_
> 
> _15:55 JM : Yes, sir. She's doing some tutorial thing for math. Tried, and failed, to get me to take it._
> 
> _15:55 SH: Well, I'm sure your parents won't hold it against her if you fail your math exam._
> 
> _15:56 JM : We'll see. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about tomorrow._
> 
> _15:57 SH: You know she doesn't celebrate her birthday, Jeff._
> 
> _15:58 JM : Yes, sir, I know that. I also know that she gets really depressed every year on her birthday. Given how this last year has gone, I'm guessing that might be especially true tomorrow._
> 
> _15:59 SH: And you want to do something to take her mind off of it._
> 
> _16:00 JM : Yes, sir._
> 
> _16:02 SH: What did you have in mind?_
> 
> _16:04 JM : I don't have all the details worked out yet, sir. I just wanted to see if it was okay with you if she was out most of the day._
> 
> _16:05 SH: Aside from it being her birthday, it won't be any different than any other day, Jeff. You two are out all day every day._
> 
> _16:06 JM : Point taken, sir._
> 
> _16:07 SH: This is good actually. I unfortunately have a meeting for most of the day. Glad to know she won't be alone. Not that I expected her to be._
> 
> _16:08 JM : Thank you, sir._
> 
> _16:10 JM : Apparently she's done. I can feel her glaring at me._
> 
> _16:11 SH: Good luck._
> 
> _16:12 User Disconnected._

* * *

Katie woke Saturday morning with a plan. She was going to actually have a  _happy_ birthday for once. That was the best revenge, right?

She decided to call Ryan to tell him about her new plan. As she picked up her omni-tool to hail him, it beeped with a vid-chat request from him.

“Hey kid,” he said when she answered. “Did I wake you?”

She shook her head. “No I was... kid? Really? The second you turn 18, suddenly I'm a kid?” she asked with mock indignation.

He grinned. “Excellent. Something new to add to my list of Things That Make Katie Mad.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can see you're going to be a very mature adult.”

“So how ya doin'?”

“Pretty good. I decided something this morning actually.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Care to share with the rest of the class?”

“That's why I was calling.”

“Um... I called you, Katie.”

“I was trying to call you but you beat me to it. Anyway, I've decided that I'm not going to be depressed about today anymore. I'll remember everybody, like I do every year, but I'm not going to sit around and mope like I usually do.”

Ryan nodded. “Good. Me too.”

“Great minds and all?” Katie said with a smirk.

He grinned. “Something like that.”

“You realize this may give our dads heart attacks that we've actually matured.”

“Speak for yourself,” he said with a wink.

She rolled her eyes. “All right, one of us has matured.”

There was another beep on her omni-tool, a message from Jeff: 

> _The tree. One hour._

She looked back at her vid-chat. “Crap. Ryan, sorry, I gotta go.”

“Jeff?” he asked with a knowing smirk.

She rolled her eyes again. “Bite me.”

He laughed. “Have fun, kid. And happy birthday.”

Katie grinned. “Happy birthday, Ryan.”

Twenty minutes later, she was working through her second Boston cream doughnut when her father came into the kitchen carrying a box.

She smiled. “Hi Daddy.”

“'Morning, sweetheart,” he said. “You're in an awfully good mood.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Not that that's a bad thing. What's going on?”

“I decided I'm gonna have a happy day today, that's all,” she said.

He smiled. “Glad to hear it.”

“What's in the box?”

He handed it to her. “It's a present from your mother.”

She blinked and looked up at him. “How's that now?”

He laughed. “Just open it.”

She lifted the lid and stared at the silver shamrock pendant necklace lying on top of a handwritten note. She took out the note and her eyes filled with tears as she read her mother's words:

> _Kathrine Anne,_
> 
> _This necklace was given to me by my mother on my sixteenth birthday, as it was given to her on hers. So I'm passing it on to you._
> 
> _The engraving on the back has been worn away through the years, but it was part of an old Irish blessing:_
> 
> _May the road rise to meet you._
> 
> _May the wind be ever at your back._
> 
> _Happy 16th birthday, sweetheart._
> 
> _Love, Mom_

Katie looked up to see her father watching her.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she said with a smile as she took the pendant out of the box and hooked the clasp at the back of her neck.

“You're not upset, are you?” he asked quietly. “You do have that whole 'no presents for your birthday' rule.”

She shook her head. “Of course not. I love it. I'm... a little confused though. Did Mom actually write the note?”

“Yes.”

“When? It's like she... knew she wasn't going to be around on my 16th birthday or something.”

Her father chuckled. “No, it was nothing like that. It's just a tradition that goes with the necklace. I'm not sure who it first belonged to, but your grandmother wasn't the first recipient. I don't think she even knew. Anyway, it was tradition that a note, whatever was going to be said, was written the day the daughter was born.”

“Guess that explains the full name.” Katie was quiet for awhile, rereading the note. Then she looked back up at her father. “Was Mom wearing the necklace the day that –”

He shook his head. “No. She hadn't been wearing it for months before that. I asked her about it when Jason and I got back from the war. Apparently, you had been playing with it a lot and she was afraid the chain would break. So she'd put it away until you were older.”

Katie laughed. “Oh. Well, I have always liked shiny things.” She got up and walked to the other side of the breakfast bar to give her father a kiss on the cheek as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Thanks, Daddy,” she said again. “I think this may be the best birthday ever. That I can remember, anyway.”

* * *

“I was beginning to wonder if you were gonna show up,” Jeff said when Katie wandered over to the tree in the park by his apartment.

She grinned. “Sorry. I was talking to Ryan when you sent me that message and then... my dad gave me a birthday present.”

“Hey!” he protested. “I thought that wasn't allowed.”

She laughed. “First of all, he's my dad, he can do whatever he wants –”

“That was not the impression I got at Christmas, Kit-Kat,” Jeff teased.

She ignored him. “Second of all, the present wasn't technically from him. It was from my mom.”

He gave her a look that she thought probably resembled the one she'd given her father earlier.

She smirked. “Yup, that's what I said.” She showed him the necklace. “It's a family tradition on my mom's side.”

“Awesome. So, first stop the usual?”

“Of course,” Katie said. “After that though, today's a new day.”

“In the way that every day is a new day, Katie?” Jeff asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Smartass. No, I mean the Bastard Who Shall Remain Nameless Forevermore isn't going to have any influence on my life anymore. Other than the ways that... yeah.”

“I know what you meant.”  Jeff looped his arm through hers as they walked toward the chapel. “So, what should we do to celebrate?”

She grinned.  “I’m picturing a prank.”

“And I’m picturing us getting grounded.”  He groaned and shook his head but gestured for her to continue.  “But lead on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Katie's necklace: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/357262182913114933/


	8. Chapter 8

At the end of the school year, Ryan pushed his graduation party back, in case a miracle happened and his uncle suddenly lost what Ryan called the _Hackett S_ _upreme S_ _tubbornness gene_ and decided to let Katie spend the summer in Solana Beach. Always the optimist (he could hear Katie laughing in his head whenever he had that thought), he'd also tentatively arranged a summer job for her, teaching the youngest swim class at the resort where he worked as a lifeguard. He hoped if his uncle saw that Katie would have something to keep her out of trouble, and away from the bar, that he might let her stay. Not to mention, it was the longest bit of time they'd get to spend together for awhile; Ryan was heading to New York for college in August.

“Fine,” Hackett snapped at breakfast the morning of the party. He and Katie had been in Solana Beach for two days already, the Admiral having relented to at least letting her go to the party, and she and Ryan hadn't stopped talking except the few hours they'd been asleep. “If you two will stop bugging me about it, we can... we'll see. All right?”

“Is she like this with Jeff?” Jason asked when Katie and Ryan got up from the table to do a celebration dance.

“You mean do they wear me or his parents down until we say yes to something?”

“Exactly.”

“No, they usually _skip the middleman_ , as it were, and just do it.” Hackett sighed into his cup of coffee. “If she thought she could get away with it, I'm sure Katie probably would have done the same thing here.”

“I would have sent her on the first transport back to Arcturus,” Jason said. He held up a hand. “Actually, no. I would have _taken_ her myself on the first transport back to Arcturus.”

“Thank you. I do wonder, _if_ she stays, are either of them prepared for the reality that it may not last the whole summer?”

“Why wouldn't it last?” Ryan asked as he and Katie sat back down to finish eating.

She leaned over to whisper something in his ear before she picked up her last waffle and walked out the back door. He followed a moment later without another word.

Jason raised an eyebrow. “What the hell was that about?”

“I'm assuming she just told him she still has nightmares occasionally,” Hackett said. “She thinks I don't know about them, probably assumes I would use it as a reason to keep her from staying, because of –”

“The whiskey,” Jason finished for him. “Don't worry. When you decided she could come down for the party, I locked all of my personal stash in the safe in my office at the Argo. Liquor cabinet here in the house is bone dry.”

“Good. Are _you_ prepared if she has a nightmare?”

“It's not like she was always a ball of sunshine and nightmare-free when she stayed here months at a time as child, so we'll manage. Assuming we make it to the point where she stays _this_ time.”

“Right. Let's just get through the party.”

* * *

Ryan certainly hadn't been the only one in his class to throw a graduation party, but since his was two weeks after everyone else's, it ended up being the biggest and the loudest. The ultimate _last_ _hurrah_ before everyone left for family vacations, jobs and college. When he'd planned it, he hadn't thought of that, how big it was going to be, and the effect being around so many people might have on Katie. But now that they were in the middle of it,she seemed to be holding her own, spending most of her time with his girlfriend Sarah and her small group of friends.

A few hours later, as the party was winding down and most people had gone off to other parts of the beach, Ryan noticed a commotion over by the bonfire. He grabbed his father and uncle and ran over to see what was going on, praying that Katie wasn't in the middle of it all.

There was a collective muttering of curses as they pushed their way through to reach the center of the small crowd. Sarah was passed out in a chair, her younger sister Lisa sitting beside her. A few feet away, Sarah's best friend Whitney had her heels dug into the sand as she tried to hold back a furious Katie from attacking an intoxicated football player who was being held _up_ by two of his friends.

As the crowd dispersed, Ryan and Hackett sat with the girls to find out what had happened, while Jason went over to the drunk and his friends to find out their side of the story and to call the police.

Whitney relayed the story with occasional muttered angry interjections from Katie.

The two guys who'd been holding up the linebacker had been hitting on the girls all night, except Sarah; they didn't want to risk tangling with Ryan. The drunk had showed up much later and apparently hadn't had the same thought, because he'd immediately latched onto Sarah. She'd pushed him away repeatedly but he kept coming back; eventually though, he gave up, went back to his friends and that's when the trouble had started.

Katie had seen him putting what looked like a pill bottle into his pocket as he walked away. She immediately went over and knocked Sarah's drink out of her hand but it was too late as she'd already drunk enough for the drug to kick in.

While Lisa and Whitney were looking after Sarah, Katie had gone over to confront the drunk; she'd heard him laughing and talking about what he was “going to do to the dumb slut once she was unconscious.” She'd tackled him and punched him in the face a few times before Whitney and one of the boys were able to separate them.

Whitney and Lisa looked surprised that Ryan and Hackett _didn't_ look surprised.

The girls looked over at Katie, who seemed slightly calmer now.

She shrugged. “It's not my first fight. My best friend Jeff has Vrolik's Syndrome. We ended up becoming friends after I got into a fight with a kid who had stolen one of his crutches.”

“On your first day of kindergarten,” Ryan added with a laugh.

“Yeah.” She grinned. “Who knows, maybe I'll get into another fight last day of my senior year. Be a nice way to bookend my school career.”

“Oh God, please don't,” Hackett muttered.

* * *

Jason came over then with a cop and a paramedic as well as the drunk and one of his friends. Ryan went with the paramedic as he went over to attend to Sarah. The cop was apparently waiting for the drunk and his friend to answer a question he'd asked previously.

“The little redhead,” the friend said, pointing at Katie.

“Yeah, tha' one,” the drunk slurred as the cop waved them away again. “Attack'd me.”

Jason wasn't surprised in the least at the revelation, but the cop raised an eyebrow. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen, a month ago,” Katie answered. “And whatever that jackass told you happened was a lie.”

“Well, Moore's account of what happened differed completely from Perez and Frost, so... out with it. What's your version?”

As Katie and Whitney launched into another retelling of what had happened, the paramedic finished with Sarah, and Ryan left to take her and Lisa home.

“That's about what the other two told me as well, particularly his words right before the fight,” the cop said when the second run-through was done. He shook his head and glanced at Katie. “Moore claims you attacked him unprovoked.”

“So what's going to happen now?” Hackett asked before she could make some sarcastic remark.

“She's free to go. The attack was far from unprovoked. Moore will be charged with public intoxication at the very least, probably more than that after I get statements from the Clarke sisters.”

“Thank you. We'll... be here for awhile, a few weeks. So she'll be easy to reach if you should need to.”

“For now, we're going to take her home before she wakes the entire city with her squealing,” Jason said to the officer a moment later as Katie started dancing again. He sighed as he and Hackett followed her back toward the house. “This is going to be one long summer.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comment :)
> 
> apologies for the super-long wait.

“I still can't believe you got into another fight,” Jeff said for the hundredth time since Katie had told him about the only _exciting_ part of her summer. “You are such a troublemaker.”

She rolled her eyes. “You make it sound like this is a regular occurrence. Twice in eleven years isn't such a big deal.”

“Sure, but _most_ people manage to go through their entire time in school, hell some their entire _lives_ without getting into _one_.”

“Whatever.” Katie flopped down on the grass under their favorite tree and opened her leather backpack, looking for her history book; even on the first day of school, they had four hours of homework. “So why didn't you come over last night? You missed the series premiere of the new Sherlock Holmes show. You know, the one that you've been talking about _non-stop_ for six months?”

Jeff sighed as he took a seat next to her. “Mandatory family meeting. My parents had some news.”

Her heart sank. “One, or both, got transferred someplace far away.”

“Sorry, Kit-Kat, you're not getting rid of me anytime soon.” He shook his head. “They uh... um... my mom is... pregnant.”

Katie dropped her history book in shock, muttering curses under her breath as it landed heavily on her knees. “Pregnant? They're not serious.”

“Completely.” Jeff pulled up a picture on his omni-tool. “Here's the sonogram.”

“Wow,” she said after staring at the sonogram for a couple of minutes. “That's... wow.”

He nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

“When's the baby due?”

“March-ish.”

Katie raised an eyebrow. “Ish?”

“I wasn't... I'd kind of tuned them out by then.”

“You're not happy about it.”

Jeff shrugged. “Kind of _indifferent_ at the moment.”

“You'll come around. Eventually.”

“If you say so.”

“And if not, we can always switch places. You can live with my dad and –”

“Oh hell no. You can keep your family drama. I can deal with the newbie.”

Katie sighed. “All I said was Daddy and Jason had a little disagreement over breakfast.”

“Uh huh. And those _little disagreements_ usually turn into all-out war.”

“Well, this time it won't, because Jason's leaving tomorrow.”

“Why was he even here? They don't trust you to make it back to Arcturus on your own?”

She laughed. “Something like that.”

Jeff groaned. “Oh no. What the hell did you do now?”

“I am completely inno–” He raised an eyebrow and she rolled her eyes. “I swear, I didn't actually do anything. Yet. They were just afraid if I was left to my own devices, I might try to stay in New York with Ryan.”

“Why would you _want_ to?”

She shrugged. “I can't think of any reason. I'm not built for cold weather; I'd never last in New York. Now if he'd gone someplace in Florida, then maybe they'd have had reason to worry.”

“Maybe?” Jeff shook his head. “There's no maybe about it. You'd _never_ have come home.”

“I'd have come home _eventually_. Couldn't leave you all alone to deal with the impending new arrival.”

“How'd we get back to... ugh. Never mind. Can we just concentrate on this dumbass paper we _already_ have to write?”

Katie smirked. “Whatever you say, _big brother_.”

* * *

_Seven Months Later..._

“That is an _excellent_ idea, Steven.”

Katie and Jeff instantly stopped playing with his month-old baby sister and looked across the Moreaus' living room to find all three of their parents grinning at them.

“This will not be good,” Jeff muttered. “I guarantee it.”

“No kidding.” Katie frowned at her father. “ _What_ is an excellent idea?”

“I just mentioned that because Ryan was staying in New York for the summer, you had no plans to go to Solana Beach.”

She crossed her arms. “Uh-huh. And?”

“And when I said I was still looking for a reliable nanny for Hilary once I go back to work, your father suggested you might like to do it,” Mrs. Moreau said with a smile.

Katie paled. She knew that smile. It was the smile of a mother who knows how to guilt her children into anything. “I... uh...” She glanced at Jeff. “Help?”

He shook his head with a laugh. “Nope.”

“Traitor.” She smiled back at his mother. “Of course, I'd love to. But only if Jeff is helping too.” She watched the triumphant look on his face melt away. “Seems like he could use some _bonding_ time with Hilary.”

“Another excellent idea,” Mrs. Moreau said. “Thank you, Katie.”

“I hate you, so much,” Jeff grumbled to Katie once their parents had turned their attentions away from them again.

She gave him an unapologetic grin. “You would be _so_ bored without me.”

“Would not. I was planning to spend the summer with my dad; he leaves for his next assignment our first day of break.” He frowned. “When were you planning to tell me you were staying put?”

“Um... now? Dunno. Slipped my mind, I guess. If you want to go with your dad –”

“What, and miss out on you trying to handle an infant by yourself?” Jeff smirked. “I don't think so.”

“If you stay, I _won't_ be handling her by myself.” She laughed as his expression turned sour again. “Oh cheer up. It's not like it's going to be every single day; we'll still have plenty of time for fun on your mom's days off.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“What's the big deal? I thought you _liked_ your sister now.”

“I do. She's not nearly as... whatever I thought she'd be.” He shrugged. “I just don't see the fun in spending the summer taking care of an infant.”

“It's not for _fun_ , Jeff,” Mrs. Moreau said as she came over to put Hilary down for a nap. “It's valuable life experience.”

He rolled his eyes. “Just what I always wanted for summer vacation, life experience.”

“And you thought spending the summer on an Alliance ship was going to be all fun and games?”

“More fun than this.”

“Like I said,” Katie muttered, following Mrs. Moreau into the nursery. “He needs bonding time.”

* * *

To their surprise and relief, taking care of Hilary didn't take up nearly as much time as Jeff and Katie had thought. Mrs. Moreau was only going in to work one full day per week; the rest were half days, so they had _plenty_ of time for the arcade and the movies. And to Jeff's surprise, he found he actually _enjoyed_ the extra time he was spending with his baby sister. By the last day of vacation, he was just as reluctant as Katie to have to give up the job in favor of going back to school.

If their teachers were to be believed, their senior year should have been the hardest yet. They heard the same damn speech over and over: “Think about what you want to do after you graduate! It's important!”

Katie and Jeff, along with the rest of the class, tuned them out after the first day. They all _knew_ what they were going to do after graduation; they were all heading to boot camp. Most were hitting the Alliance recruitment office on their 18th birthdays. All except those who had slightly younger friends with whom they'd made pacts to wait to sign up together. Like Jeff, two months older than Katie; they'd both had dreams of joining the Alliance since before they'd even met and had made such a pact all the way back in elementary school.

Finally, Katie's 18th birthday rolled around. The second that school was out, she and Jeff hopped in a skycab and headed to the complex where their parents' offices were.

“Did you really do it?” Ryan asked when Katie finally answered his vid-chat hail.

“Yup.” She pulled Jeff over. “We leave for boot camp June 1st.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “Together?”

“Surprisingly, yes.” She glanced over her shoulder to the spot where her father stood talking with the Moreaus. “Maybe they've decided that we've matured.”

“And yet, somehow I doubt you actually have.” Ryan laughed when Katie stuck her tongue out at him. “See?”

“More mature than you were at 18, or probably than you are now.”

“Probably on the first, _highly_ doubtful on the second.”

“So, did _you_ do what you'd planned today?” Katie asked Ryan after Jeff had gone over to take a fussing Hilary for a walk.

“Yes, yes I did.” Ryan held up a data pad showing his approved application to join C-Sec. “I'm also leaving June 1st.”

“How'd your dad take the news?”

“He was more than a little surprised; he thought I'd abandoned the idea years ago.” He seemed to hesitate a moment before he asked, “Speaking of dads, how'd yours take it when he found out you changed your name?”

Katie sighed. “He's a little sad about it, I think. He said it'll take some getting used to, but he understands my reason for doing it and may have even suggested it himself if I hadn't done it on my own.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “He said I have to be able to succeed, or fail, because of what I do, not because of my last name.  Which is _exactly_ what I plan to do.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, comments, etc. especially after this absolutely uncalled-for long wait.
> 
> Enjoy!

Katie didn’t see what the big fucking deal was.  It was just a stupid little prank, blowing off steam before graduation.  But the DIs hadn’t seen it that way, less than amused to find her in the mess hall after lights out, in the middle of switching the caps on random salt and pepper shakers so that no one would know if the set on their table was safe or not.  

As they’d dragged her away to the commander's office, she’d just prayed Jeff had gotten away.  He’d only been the lookout after all.

And her punishment for her prank?  She was stuck in the brig, missing graduation.  But at least Jeff  _ had _ gotten away.  He was out with the rest of their class, seeing their families and she was… alone.

Or not.

She’d been counting the perforations in the ceiling tiles for more than an hour when she heard voices outside.  She recognized one as her Commander… and the other voice, the eerily calm one, was unmistakably her dad’s.  

_ Fuck. _

“Help me understand, Katie,” Hackett said as he paced up and down outside the cell minutes later.  “Joining the Alliance was your one and only life goal from the time you were three years old, yes?”

She nodded silently.

“Then tell me why the hell you decided to jeopardize that with a childish prank!”

She shrugged but still said nothing.

“When you pulled the prank at your academy graduation, I let it slide.  One last hurrah. But I thought you'd grown since then.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Guess you were wrong then.”

“I guess I was.” He sighed and headed for the door, clearly resigned to never getting an explanation, but turned in the doorway.  “They asked me what I'd do if it was up to me to set a punishment.”

She sat up a little straighter on the bench.  “And?”

“I told them, if it were up to me, I'd not let you graduate, make you go through the entire damn course again.”

“Dad!”

He shrugged.  “You're obviously not mature enough to handle the responsibilities of officers training.”

She jumped up and walked to the cell door.  “What are you talking about?”

“You passed every test with flying colors.” She could see a hint of a proud smile as he added, “You even beat my scores.”

Katie fell silent again, a look of utter fury on her face. 

“Lucky for you, I'm  _ not _ the one who decides your fate, and you'll be heading off to San Diego in two days.”

“Oh.”

“Katie?” He paused until she finally relented and looked up at him.  “I am proud of you, sweetheart.”

She scoffed.  “Got a funny way of showing it.”

“Well, you've got a funny way of proving you deserve to be a Marine.”

“So, what? Am I stuck here for the next two days?”

“Again, if it were up to me –”

“Well, it's not,  _ Dad _ ,” she snapped. “That's it, isn't it?  You're angry because you can't tell me what to do anymore.”

He shook his head.  “You've never done anything I told you to anyway.”

“Just go away, Dad.  Please.”  

She slid down the wall of the cell and rested her head on her knees, refusing to move until long after she’d heard the sound of his footsteps fading away and the outer door sliding open and shut.

* * *

> _ Inter-Relay Text Chat _
> 
> _ Location: Solana Beach _
> 
> _ From: Jason _
> 
> _ To: Steven _
> 
> _ 14:07 J: So, are you coming for Ryan’s engagement party?  Staying after for Christmas? _
> 
> _ 14:10 S: Of course.  _
> 
> _ 14:11 S: Will Katie be there? _
> 
> _ 14:12 J: She’s already here.  Did you forget she’s been in San Diego all this time? _
> 
> _ 14:12 S: Right. _
> 
> _ 14:13 J: You do know this, her not talking to you for the last year, it's your fault, yes? _
> 
> _ 14:14 S: So you’ve said several times, but you’ve yet to explain why. _
> 
> _ 14:16 J: If she'd been anyone else, it would have been her parents that came to her boot camp graduation and went down to see her in the brig. _
> 
> _ 14:17 S: I'm confused. Last I checked, I am her father. _
> 
> _ 14:19 J: Of course you are, but you didn't go in there as her father.  You went in there as Admiral Hackett. _
> 
> _ 14:19 S: Oh. _
> 
> _ 14:22 J: Look. Katie?  She doesn't give a shit about your job or position.  Her wanting to be a Marine since she was a toddler?  That had nothing to do with the job and everything to do with you.  You could be literally anything in the galaxy and she'd follow in your footsteps. _
> 
> _ 14:23 S: Damn it.  You could have told me that sooner. _
> 
> _ 14:24 J: We all just assumed you weren't  that big of a fucking idiot and you’d realize it on your own sooner rather than later. _
> 
> _ 14:26 J: Please tell me it hasn't taken you almost 20 years to figure out she idolizes the hell out of you, Steven.  Always has done. _
> 
> _ 14:30 J: I'll take your silence as a yes you really are that stupid. _
> 
> _ 14:33 J: Ryan and I have done our best to convince her to talk to you.  She’s ignored us.  So it’s all up to you.  Talk to her.  Even if she won’t talk to you, she’ll likely at least listen. _
> 
> _ 14:35 S: I hope you’re right.  See you in a few days. _
> 
> _ 14:35 [User Has Disconnected] _

* * *

Hackett was at his wit’s end.  The engagement party and Christmas had come and gone and Katie still wouldn’t talk to him.  He’d taken Jason’s advice and tried to talk to her without expectations, but he honestly couldn’t tell if she’d listened to him or not.  So he gave up for the time being and went on to Vancouver, preparing for a meeting of the admiralty on New Year’s Eve.

Early New Year’s Day, much earlier than he’d have liked to have been up considering the late hour he’d gone to bed, the video terminal in his hotel suite went off and he had an eerie sense of déjà vu.  If he never heard or saw the name St. Luke’s again in his life, he decided as he hurried to answer the hail, it would still be too goddamn soon.

An hour later, he was rushing out of a cab at the emergency entrance of Solana Beach’s one and only hospital.  It didn’t take him long to spot Jason in the waiting area.

“Are these two incapable of getting together without shenanigans that end in injury?” Hackett said as he sank into a chair beside his brother-in-law.  

He heard a quiet giggle, followed by a whimper, a whispered “shenanigans” and another giggle from Jason’s other side, where Katie was curled up in the chair, apparently feigning sleep.

“What’s so damn funny?”

Jason shook his head with a sigh.  “She’s drunk and thinks everything is hilarious, though I suspect that’s wearing off quickly and she’ll be begging for painkillers before long.”

“What happened?”  Jason had been vague on the details when he’d called, so Hackett had absolutely no idea what was going on.  “And how’s Ryan?”

“We were minding our own fucking business and some stupid bitch just comes out of nowhere and slams into us,” Katie snapped without moving to look at him or acknowledge that he was there.  “And then she just fucking drove off!”

“And Ryan’s fine, mostly,” Jason said after a moment of waiting to see if she finished ranting or not.  “He’s back with Sarah, getting checked out.”

Hackett frowned.  “So what happened exactly?  That,” he motioned toward his daughter, “was vague.”

“Ryan and a bunch of his friends met up with Katie and a bunch of her friends in San Diego for a New Year’s Eve pub crawl,” Jason said.  “They –”

“Not my friends,” Katie interrupted.  “Jus’ his.”

“Thank you for that ever so important detail.”  Jason rolled his eyes.  “ _ Anyway _ , they started back after closing time, got in to Solana Beach about 0300.”

“And then the bitch hit us.” 

Katie shifted so she was facing Jason and Hackett saw for the first time the actual extent of her injuries.  She had cuts and bruises on nearly every inch of visible skin, once again giving him that painful sense of  déjà vu .  She also had a neck brace that he presumed was a precaution and likely standard procedure.

After taking a moment to situate herself into a comfortable position, Katie continued where Jason had left off, though she still hadn’t really acknowledged that Hackett was there too.  “We were at the cabstand at the transport station, waiting for a cab to pick us up.  And this skycar came out of fucking  _ nowhere _ and starts driving up on the sidewalk.”  She winced as she heaved a sigh.  “We couldn’t get out of the way fast enough and she slammed into us.  Ryan took most of the hit.  I flew back a few feet and hit one of the windows of the station.” She made a sweeping gesture across her body.  “Hence the cuts.”

“Are you okay?” Hackett asked as Jason got up to check on Ryan’s status.

She raised an eyebrow.  “Do I fucking  _ look _ okay?”

He sighed.  “You know what I mean.  Any damage other than the cuts and bruises?”

She looked down at her nails, picking at the already-chipped silver and gold polish, and said nothing.

“Katie.”

“She’s got a couple of broken ribs and whiplash,” Jason chimed in as he walked back from the nurse’s station and ignored the death glare Katie sent his way.  “And Ryan’s got a couple of broken ribs himself, plus a broken leg.  He’s staying the day and possibly tonight, for ‘observation’ they said, but we can go up and –”

“Great.” Katie hopped out of her chair and started for the elevator before Jason had finished his sentence, only to fall to her knees mere steps later, doubled over in obvious pain.

“Guess the booze has finally worn off,” Jason muttered before he went back up to the nurses station.  

Hackett rushed over to kneel beside his daughter, but kept a space between them, in case she decided to lash out at him from pain or anger.  

“I warned you, didn’t I?” the nurse chided as she crouched beside Katie, trying to assess the damage.

“Bite me,” Katie muttered, but allowed the woman to examine her.  After a few moments, she swatted her away and attempted to stand on her own, apparently still trying to escape to the elevator.

“Is she always this stubborn?” the nurse grumbled to Hackett as they helped her up and into a wheelchair.  “Oh no you don’t,” she said, gently pushing Katie back into the chair as she immediately made a break for the elevator yet again.  “You’re going straight to X-ray, make sure you didn’t puncture a lung or somethin’ with all your stubbornness.”

Katie muttered something unintelligible as the nurse wheeled the chair toward the elevator.

“You should go with her,” Hackett told Jason as they followed a few steps behind.  “She might actually listen to you and stay put.”

Jason nodded.  “I wouldn’t count on it, but more likely me than you.”

When the elevator reached Ryan's floor, Hackett ignored the muttered curses Katie sent his way as he bent down to kiss the top of her head.  “I love you, sweetheart, even when you’re at your most stubborn.” He stepped out of the elevator and added, “And I’m sorry.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comment and kudos :)
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

“I’m going to punch the next person who asks me if I got lost at the alter,” Katie muttered as she sat next to Ryan at the rehearsal dinner.  “‘Girls belong on the left, dear,’” she mimicked in a shrill whisper.  “‘You were meant to stand with Lisa and Whitney on our side.’”

Ryan laughed.  “Lemme guess, that was Sarah and Lisa’s grandmother?”  Katie nodded.  “Yeah, she’s… very traditional.  She’s not all that keen on most of this wedding, actually.  Don’t even get me started on her rant about Uncle Steven being the officiant.”

She scowled at the mention of her father, but was distracted by a figure moving toward the head table.  “Crap.  Here she comes again,” she said as a statuesque woman with silver hair pulled into a severe bun walked up to them.

Ryan stood up to intercept her.  “Mrs. Clarke? I’d like to introduce you to my cousin, Katie.”

“Ah, the lost girl,” she said brusquely.  

Katie felt Ryan’s hand squeezing her shoulder, harder than she thought necessary, as she tried to stand up.

“She wasn’t lost, Grandma,” Sarah said as she joined them.  “I explained all this to you before.  She’s Ryan’s best woman.”

“‘Best woman.’  Whoever heard of such nonsense.”  Mrs. Clarke scoffed.  “In my day –”

Sarah rolled her eyes as she led the woman away.  “Yes, Grandma, we’ve all heard what happened in your day.  Many times.  Shush.”

“Sometimes I really hate that woman,” Ryan said quietly as he sat down again.  “Rules that family with an iron fist.”

Katie snorted.  “Yeah, because Meemaw didn’t do the same thing in ours?”

“She wasn’t cruel about it though.”

“True.”

A silence fell over them then, both lost in their own thoughts about their family.  They didn’t often bring up their grandparents, or their mothers, the memories too painful even seventeen years later.  

“You know she’d give you hell for giving Uncle Steven the silent treatment for so long,” Ryan said after awhile.  

Katie glared at him.  “Don’t bring up this shit again,” she said, resisting the urge to bang her head on the table.  “This is supposed to be a  _ happy _ occasion.”

“It is, and you know what would make  _ me _ really happy?” he said, an edge to his voice she hadn’t heard in a long time.  “If you’d let go of this petty shit and march your stubborn ass over to him and fucking apologize!”

She blinked.  “You want me to do it now or are you good with not disrupting the rehearsal dinner that your fiancée worked really hard to organize, just for family drama?”

“To  _ resolve _ family drama, and Sarah won’t mind,” he said, nudging her not-so-gently toward the edge of her seat.  “If you do it now, I’ll let you drink at the reception tomorrow.”

“You weren’t going to?”  He narrowed his eyes and she held up her hands in surrender.  “All right, I’m going, I’m going.  Damn.”

She looked around the room and finally spotted her father and Jason talking together by the bar.  Jason stepped away as she approached, but she noticed he stayed within earshot, likely afraid she was going to cause a scene.

“Dad, I’m –” Her words were abruptly cut off as her father pulled her into a strong hug, all but completely cutting off her ability to breathe.

She could hear Jason laughing from a few feet away. “Steven, if you re-break her ribs, I suspect she’ll just never speak to you ever again.”

She immediately felt his grip loosen, but he didn’t let go completely, only pulled back so they were looking at each other.  “I’ve missed you, sweetheart.”

“I missed you too, Dad.  And I’m sorry I’ve been such a…”

“Petulant child?” Jason offered with an unrepentant grin as Katie glared at him.

She sighed.  “Yeah, something like that.” 

Her father chuckled.  “Let’s just say I’m used to it by now.”

“Hilarious, both of you,” she grumbled, stepping away to perch on a bar stool.  “Absolute jokers.”

“Speaking of  _ jokers _ , I was under the impression Jeff was supposed to be your date for tonight and tomorrow, yet I haven’t seen any sign of him.”

She raised an eyebrow.  “How the  _ hell _ did you know about Jeff’s new nickname?”

“His father told me.  Just because  _ you _ stopped talking to me doesn’t mean everyone else did.”

“Yeah, yeah.  Anyway, he was gonna be my plus one, but his CO had other ideas.  So, my date tomorrow will be a bottle of whiskey.”

Jason rolled his eyes.  “Wonderful.”

* * *

> _ From: Jeff _
> 
> _ To: Katie _
> 
> _ Subj: Took You Long Enough! _
> 
> _ Jesus, Katie, were you just gonna never talk to your dad ever again until Ryan promised alcohol?  Jason’s right, you are a petulant child. _
> 
> _ Anyway, have fun for me. Wish I could be there, if only to see for myself that someone other than my mother is capable of convincing you to wear a dress without you throwing a hissy fit. _
> 
> _ -J _
> 
> _ PS: Try not to get into, or be the cause of, any fights this time. _
> 
> _ PPS: Hilary says hi. _
> 
> _ PPS: And my parents. _

* * *

Katie didn’t know how Jason did it, walking into the Argo day in and day out.  Sure, it was his life’s work, nearly every credit he’d earned in the Alliance had been sunk into the place.  But after what his own bastard of a brother had done…

It had been almost exactly five years since the night the truth had come out, and yet she couldn’t help feeling a sense of overwhelming dread sweep over her as she and Whitney followed after Sarah and Ryan, leading the wedding guests into the reception.  Ecstatic as she was that they’d finally tied the knot, it took every ounce of willpower for her to keep a smile on her face through it all.

Finally, after the toasts and speeches had been given, the  _ official _ dances done, and everyone was sitting down to dinner, Katie snagged a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler and slipped out the side door onto the balcony.

She took a few deep breaths, gulping in the cool ocean air, quickly calming her frayed nerves.  After a moment, she looked around and was surprised to find she wasn’t alone.  

The man leaning against the railing and smoking a cigar looked oddly familiar, but she couldn’t really place him.  He looked a couple of years younger than her father and, from what she could see of his arms where his sleeves rolled up, was heavily tattooed.  Even hunched over as he was, he had a clear military bearing, though she suspected his Alliance days were long past him.

“Nice speech in there,” he said after a moment, his voice low and gravelly.  “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you two were siblings instead of cousins.”

Katie blushed faintly.  “Not the first time I’ve heard that, even from our own dads.”  She settled on one of the benches lining the wall and poured whiskey into her glass, looking at him thoughtfully.  “Do I know you from somewhere?”

He snorted a laugh, his back still turned to her, and drained his own tumbler.  “Not bloody likely.  Your old man would have skinned me alive if we’d met before now.”

She smirked.  “Oh?  So you’re familiar with the overprotective tendencies of Steven Hackett?”

“Very.”  He turned to face her and she saw for the first time his mismatched eyes, one a deep green, the other the almost translucent grey of an implant.  “We were war buddies, the three of us.  But when I decided to leave the Alliance after the war was over, Steven decided my chosen  _ career path _ wasn’t… family friendly.” He shrugged stiffly.  “So, we’ve kept up over the years, but I was  _ forbidden _ from hanging out around here whenever you were here.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Dad.”  She cupped her chin in her hands, her elbows on her knees.  “And does Mr. Not Family Friendly have a name?”

“Zaeed.”

“So, Zaeed, what brings you outside when all the  _ fun _ is in there?”

He shrugged again.  “Crowds aren’t really my thing.”

“Not a party animal then?”

He laughed.  “Not even slightly.”  Setting his glass down on the railing, he crossed his arms and eyed her somewhat critically.  “What about you?  You’ve looked uncomfortable and damn jumpy since you set foot in the bar.”

“Just met but you already know me, do you?”

“No, but I can read people pretty goddamn accurately, their general emotions and the way they react to the environment.  Comes with the job.”

She evaded his question and asked a follow-up of her own.  “And what job might that be?”

“Mercenary, bounty hunter –”

“‘Good for nothing layabout’ is how Steven’s always described you,” said Jason’s amused voice from the doorway.  He stepped out onto the balcony and raised an eyebrow as he looked back and forth between Katie and Zaeed.  “You two getting chummy already?”

“I’d hardly call this  _ chummy _ ,” Katie retorted as she held out the bottle of whiskey to refill Zaeed’s glass.  “Just… talking is all.”

Zaeed nodded his thanks and took a sip.  “Mostly about Steven.”

Jason rolled his eyes.  “I bet that was an  _ enlightening _ conversation.”

“Very,” Katie said quietly.  “So, what’s up?”

“Your dad is looking for you, said something about wanting to dance just once before the night was over.”

“And he wants to dance so much he couldn’t come out and ask me himself?”  She glared up at Jason when he swatted her on the back of the head.  “What?”

“Be nice.  You  _ just _ started talking to him again, don’t jeopardize that.  And he may have gotten waylaid by Sarah’s grandmother.”

“Ugh.”  She rolled her eyes as she stood up and smoothed down her dress.  “Just what I needed to cap off this evening, rescuing Daddy Dearest from the Queen B–”

“Be nice,” Jason said again as he tried to steer her toward the door, glaring over his shoulder at Zaeed, who was snickering into his whiskey.

“Why? She’s not  _ my _ grandmother.  With any luck, tonight will be the last time I’ll have to see her for a long time.”

Jason heaved a sigh. “Just go.”

Katie turned in the doorway and flashed a smile to Zaeed.  “Nice to meet you.  Wish we could’ve continued this particular conversation.”

He returned the smile and nodded.  “Same.”

“See ya around!”

“Not if your dad’s got anything to say about it,” Jason muttered in her ear as he passed by.

She ignored his comment and worked her way through the small groups of people gathered around the room.  She finally spotted her father and the elder Mrs. Clarke near the makeshift dance floor, and steeled herself for any potential comments before she approached.

“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Clarke,” Katie said, trying not to laugh at the sheer relief on her father’s face at not being stuck alone with the woman anymore.

“You gave a lovely speech, dear,” the older woman said, “even if you did look damned odd standing on the other side.”

Katie merely smiled, afraid of what she might unwittingly say if she opened her mouth again.  After a moment, she looked up at her father and took his arm in a silent gesture asking “can we please go?”

He nodded and then smiled at Mrs. Clarke.  “I’m sorry to cut this short, but I promised my daughter a dance before the end of the night.”

“Pretty sure lying to grandmothers is a guaranteed ticket to hell,” Katie remarked as they stepped onto the dance floor and began a slow circuit around it.

He chuckled.  “It wasn’t  _ entirely _ a lie.  And if I’m going to hell, it’s for something other than lying to Sarah’s grandmother.”

“If you say so, Dad.”

“So where’d you disappear to?  Seems like I haven’t seen you at all since before dinner.”

She shrugged and rested her head on his chest.  “It was all getting to be a little much,” she admitted.  “This many people in this size space, plus just being here at all, in this room.”

He pulled her closer into a hug as they continued dancing.  “Are you all right now?”

“Guess so.  Met an old friend of yours outside and he kinda took my mind off of it all.”

“Oh?  Who was that?”

“Zaeed.”

His fingers tightened ever so slightly around hers for a moment.  “I see.”

She glanced up at him. “He said you don’t approve of his career choice.”

“I don’t.”  He sighed and fell silent for several moments before he continued.  “But he’s been damn helpful in the past.  If it wasn’t for him, I just don’t know if you’d even be here right now.”

“You mean he helped you with…” She trailed off, not even wanting to think the bastard’s name.

“Yes.  Ryan was the reason I started looking but Zaeed was the one who actually figured out where you were.”

“Oh.” 

The song ended then and Katie felt her father press a kiss to the top of her head before he pulled away and they walked to the edge of the dance floor.

“I still stand by my decision when you were growing up,” he said quietly, “but there are certainly worse men in the universe than Zaeed Massani.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos and the lovely comments :)
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

_ “The entire colony wiped out by –” _

_ “Thresher maws claimed the lives of the entire unit except –” _

_ “Lt. Kathrine Shepard, daughter of –” _

_ “How did Lt. Shepard survive when no one else did?” _

Katie growled in frustration as she flipped through every news channel available, unable to find a single story that wasn’t talking about her and Akuze.  It had been three weeks and yet the reports kept on about it like the attack had happened mere hours ago.  

The constant reports had been helpful, if wholly depressing, when she’d first woken up two weeks after the attack to find herself in a hospital in Vancouver with no memory of how she’d gotten there.  But now, she wished they’d move on to something else, or at least concentrate on those who’d died, rather than continually fueling the conspiracy theories that had already started about how she’d managed to get out alive.

How  _ had _ she survived?  It seemed she’d heard the question a thousand times in the last week, and every single time, she’d given the same answer.   _ I don’t know. _

And she really didn’t.  No matter how many times people prodded her for answers, she couldn’t remember anything about that night other than the screams of everyone in her unit as they apparently fell one by one to the maws.  But she didn’t tell anyone about those.  They were her own private hell, not for the analysis of others. 

The doctors kept insisting she needed sleep, but she couldn't sleep.  The screams of the dying were ever-present when she was awake, but it was nothing compared to the hell she was in when she closed her eyes. 

Total darkness, screaming, pain so horrible not even her pain medication could take it away.  But these were almost preferable to the nightmares about Marcus that still plagued her every once in awhile.  Almost.

When the doctors had finally realized she  _ wasn’t _ going to sleep unless they sedated her again, which more than one was in favor of doing, they decided to allow her to have visitors, if only to keep her occupied and out of trouble.

Her father had already been a near-constant presence, but Katie prefered the moments when he wasn’t there, or when someone else was in the room as well.  She couldn’t stand the look of  _ guilt _ in his eyes, as if he’d been the one who’d put her on Akuze.

There were precious few visitors she could actually tolerate for longer than twenty minutes at a time.  Most did little more than ask how she was doing and then sit there with a look of pity on their faces, scrabbling for something else to say.  With these, she usually feigned a yawn and waited until they took the hint and left.

The ones she actually looked forward to seeing were the ones who weren’t hellbent on reminding her that she was in the hospital, the ones who could distract her from the screaming in her head.  

Jeff had been the first in to see her when the doctors had lifted the visitor ban, but he’d also been the first to leave as he’d only been able to get a weekend pass and he’d promised his mother he’d drop by Arcturus as well.  He’d attempted to make up for the short visit by sending a large box of donuts from their favorite bakery on Arcturus, but the nurses had immediately confiscated it. 

Other than her father, Jason had been one of her only frequent visitors.  He’d been in several times in the two weeks she’d been in the induced coma, sitting with her to give her father a chance to sleep, not that he’d used it.  But now that she was awake and not quite so  _ physically fragile _ , as the doctors liked to put it, he wasn’t alone when he visited, bringing his two year-old granddaughter Emma with him.  Playing with her “niece” had lifted Katie’s spirits more than anything else could have and she honestly contemplated trying to convince Ryan and Sarah to let her keep Emma indefinitely.

It wouldn’t work, but it couldn’t have hurt to ask.

Then there was Zaeed.  They’d run into each other a handful of times in the three years since Ryan’s wedding, but his first visit had still been a pleasant surprise.  She’d had one hell of an awkward visit with Admiral Kahoku and members of his unit, the ones who’d found her on Akuze, and all she’d really wanted was to actually try sleeping for awhile.  But she’d perked up immediately when she’d seen Zaeed lurking outside the door as the Marines had filed out.  He’d been back several times since then, each time a surprise to her, especially since she knew he had his own aversion to hospitals.

And now that the doctors had finally had enough of her and were chucking her out on her ass, he was here once again.

“If you’re here to cheer me up or something, you’re a bit too late,” she said, glancing at him over her shoulder as she started packing her duffel.

“So I noticed.  But I’m here on  _ official orders _ , sort of.”

“You follow orders?”  

He shrugged.  “When they come from the right people, or  _ for _ the right people, I consider it.”

She snorted a laugh.  “So what menial task has Admiral Hackett shoved your way  _ this _ time?”

“Last one wasn’t so goddamn  _ menial _ in my book.” Zaeed was right of course, but she didn’t say anything because he’d muttered it so quietly she was sure she wasn’t actually meant to hear it.  “He thought you could use some  _ help _ getting out of the hospital, past this lot,” he said louder, jerking his head toward the knot of people outside.  “And a push towards home as well.”

“Better than a damn MP escort anyway.”  She turned back to finish packing.  “But there's no fucking way I'm going to Arcturus.  There's worse than reporters there.  There's people who will be fawning over me and giving me constant looks of pity.  I’ve had enough of that shit to last me more than a lifetime.”

She loved the Moreaus like her own family, sometimes more than her own family, if she was honest.  But she knew from long experience how Mrs. Moreau worked when somebody had been through hell and she couldn't handle that right now.  Not to mention a likely endless stream of questions from Hilary.  No, she was better off far away from all that, for now.  

“Fair enough,” Zaeed said, interrupting her thoughts as he pushed off the wall and walked across the room to pick up her duffel.  “Where are we off to then?”

She gingerly crossed her arms.  “Just like that?  No arguments, just ‘fair enough’?”

“What can I say?  You make a more passionate argument for avoiding the place than Steven did for taking you there.”

“I can live with that.”  She grinned.  “So, when’s the last time you were at the Argo?”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, reviews, etc. They really keep me going! Hope y'all enjoy :)

“What the hell do you mean you got  _ lost _ ?” Katie had to suppress a giggle at the utter bewilderment in her father's voice.  “How do you get  _ lost _ going from Vancouver to Solana Beach?  It's a straight shot down the coast!” He frowned. “Why are you even driving?  You could have been here in two hours by shuttle.”

She narrowed her eyes and countered with her own question.  “What do  _ you _ mean by ‘here’?  I thought you were going back to Arcturus.”

“You’re not the only one who can change plans at the drop of a hat, sweetheart.”

“I didn’t change any plans, Dad.  You made plans for me; I just chose not to follow them.”  She rolled her eyes.  “ _ Anyway _ , to answer your question, if you'd been cooped up in a hospital for three weeks, would you want to spend even two hours packed into a flying sardine can with a bunch of strangers?”

“I suppose that's a fair point,” he conceded after a moment's thought.  He looked decidedly jealous as he took in the shape of the car she was perched on top of and asked, “But why the vintage road car?  Why not a skycar?”

“Still too sardine-like.” She shuddered slightly at the idea. “I needed to feel the sun on my face and the wind in my hair.”

“You are definitely your mother’s daughter,” he said with a mournful smile.  “I imagine she'd be seething with envy if she could see you right now.”

“You mean the way  _ you  _ are?” Katie teased.

He chuckled. “Worse.  She was as obsessed with vintage cars as Jeff is with flying.”

“Damn. That  _ is _ obsessed.” 

“Indeed.”

“So you’re okay with this?” Katie asked tentatively, breaking a minutes-long silence that had fallen between them.  “You’ve been uncharacteristically calm this entire conversation.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “Would you rather I scolded?”

“No, definitely not.  Already got plenty of that from Zaeed when he found out we were lost.”

“And where is he, exactly?”  Her father narrowed his eyes, as if he was trying to see directly into her mind, find out exactly what she might have done with Zaeed.  “You didn’t dump him on the side of the road, did you?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Of course not.  We stopped at a motel to ask directions and then decided to stay instead of going any further tonight.  He’s inside getting us a room.”

“ _ A _ room?”

“Yes, Dad.   _ A _ room.”  She couldn’t stop the sigh of exasperation that escaped her lips at the look on her father’s face.  “I’ve been sharing a room, and occasionally a bed, off and on with Jeff since we were little and you never batted an eye.”

“Sharing a room, or a bed, with Jeff Moreau is worlds apart from sharing one with Zaeed Massani.”

“Oh, bringing out full names now. He must be mad,” Zaeed said as he walked up to stand beside the car and slung an arm around Katie’s shoulders.  “Why would it be any different, Steven?  Don’t you trust me?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked you to pick her up.” 

Katie cringed internally at her father’s tone of voice, one that sounded calm and collected but usually meant he was anything but.  

“So, you don’t trust  _ me _ ?” she asked bracingly.  “Are we going to have to have yet another talk about how I’m an adult and –”

“No, no, just forget I ever said anything.”  He pinched the bridge of his nose and appeared to be counting down from one hundred, though he didn’t finish before he changed the subject entirely.  “When exactly do you expect to get into Solana Beach?”

She shrugged.  “Probably either late tomorrow night or early the next day.”

“That long?”  His response of a heavy sigh seemed dramatic even for him.  “Emma’s getting antsy and if I have to hear her squealing about how long it’s been since she last saw you, I’m going to drown myself in the ocean.”

Katie exchanged amused glances with Zaeed and then smiled sweetly at her father.  “Sorry to hear that, Dad.  But you’ll be fine, I promise.  See you whenever we get there.”

“Are you two not capable of having a conversation that doesn’t turn into a goddamn confrontation?” Zaeed asked as he lifted Katie off the hood of the car and walked around to get their bags from the back seat.

“No, not really.” She winced as she stretched her arms over her head, her shoulders and back stiff from sitting still for so long.  “Not long conversations anyway.  Short ones are usually pleasant-ish, as long as they start out that way.”

“I noticed you didn’t tell him the real reason for the detour.”

“With the way he panics when anything goes off-plan?  I’ve had enough of his panicking over small things to last a lifetime.”  She sighed and leaned into Zaeed as he led the way to their room.  “If I’d told him about the reporters that had been following us, he’d have had a shuttle here within the hour to ‘extract’ me from a ‘dangerous situation.’”

“Aye, that sounds like Steven all right,” Zaeed mused.

Katie’s next thought was swallowed up by a wide yawn as she stumbled up to the door.  

“You need sleep, kitten,” he said after she fell face-first onto the bed the moment they walked into the room.

“Thank you, Dr. Obvious.”  She yawned to cover the little giggle that she’d let out when he'd called her  _ kitten  _ before she turned on her side to glare at him.  “And how do you propose I  _ do _ that?”

He put the bags on the couch and sat next to her on the bed.  “When’s the last time you had a proper night’s sleep?”

“The night before my third birthday,” she answered automatically, the question one she’d heard numerous times over the years. “Maybe the night before that.”

“Jesus.”

She shrugged as she sat up and moved so she was leaning back against the headboard.  “You asked, I answered.”

“Sorry I did that, now.”

She laughed in spite of the gravity of the conversation.  “Yeah, that’s usually the response I get when I answer that question.”

Zaeed raised an eyebrow.  “Been asked that one a lot, have you?”

“More times than I can count, honestly.”  

As usual, it had been Jason who’d clued her father in on the  _ real _ reason she’d gone weeks without nightmares when she was a kid.  It hadn’t been the numerous shrinks he’d taken her to; they’d all been scared off one by one anyway.  It had been after-school gaming sessions with Jeff, and when things were really bad, late-night vid chats with Ryan.  

After Jason’s call, she’d been too scared to bring up the vid chats, going more than a week without talking to Ryan, until her father had finally assured her that he and Jason were both fine with them.  They’d continued throughout their childhoods, with varying frequency, until just before her last summer visit between her freshman and sophomore years.  The one that no amount of talking would ever erase from her mind, or her nightmares.

Overwhelmed by the sudden rush of memories, Katie slid off the bed to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest.  The mattress creaked a moment later as Zaeed sat with her but said nothing, a comforting presence without making her feel crowded.

The silence stretched on for what felt like an eternity, until a shrill alarm erupted from Katie’s omni-tool, making them both jump.

“What the bloody hell is that?” Zaeed asked as she scrambled to turn it off.  “And why is it so goddamn loud?”

They both sighed in relief as the alarm finally stopped wailing.  “Emma was playing games on my ‘tool yesterday.  She must have hit the volume control at some point,” Katie said, using Zaeed’s shoulder and the edge of the bed to hoist herself up off the floor.  “It’s time for my pain pills.  But first, a shower, and dinner.”

“Dinner sounds good,” Zaeed said, his stomach rumbling as he got up as well.  “In or out?”

“Definitely in.” Katie scrounged through her duffel, looking for her toiletry bag.  “I’m not going out anywhere ‘til we leave in the morning.”

“Fair enough.  You have anything in particular in mind?”

She shook her head more vigorously than a response demanded, freeing her hair from the braid one of the nurses had put it in just before Katie had fled from the hospital.  “I don’t care; as long as it’s food and it’s edible, I’ll eat it.”

Zaeed stood by the room’s front door.  “And you’ll be all right ‘til I get back?”

“Of course!” she said, her voice more cheerful than she actually felt.  She loved spending time with Zaeed, moreso than with most anyone else, especially right now, but even a short time completely alone would do her a world of good.  Probably.

Either that, or he’d come back to find her huddled in the shower, bawling.

“Just go,” she insisted when he stood a moment longer in the doorway, an eyebrow raised in question.  “I’ll be fine!”

And she  _ was _ , until she stepped into the shower and realized the shower head didn’t have adjustable water pressure like the one in her hospital room.  

_ Just my luck,  _ she thought as she tentatively stepped under the spray,  _ all the crappy motels I’ve stayed in and  _ _ this _ _ one actually has water pressure. _

By the time Zaeed returned with the food, Katie had finally stopped bawling from the most painful shower of her life, and she’d started the equally painful process of trying to put medicated cream on her back.

“You  _ can _ ask for help, y’know,” he said when she growled in frustration for the umpteenth time as she struggled to reach her back while simultaneously keeping her towel from falling.

“Could, don’t want to,” she said, her eyes meeting his for half a second before she went back to twisting around in the mirror to stare at the worst of the acid burns.  “Gonna have to do it myself at some point, so might as well start now.”

“Christ, it’s like your veins are filled with stubbornness instead of blood.” He sighed and stopped unpacking the food, instead walking across the room to take the cream from her hand.  “You’re on leave for at least the next three weeks, yes?”

“Yeah, so?” She knew exactly where he was going with this, but played dumb anyway.

“And you only have to keep up this routine until you go back to the doctor.  So, unless you plan to spend all that time in complete isolation, you won’t have to turn into a goddamn contortionist every time you have to put this shit on.”

“Oh you do have a way with words, Zaeed,” she cooed mockingly as she made a show of trudging across the room to flop face first onto the bed once again, readjusting the towel so her entire back was exposed but everything else was covered.  “I happen to like being a contortionist, thank you very much, but have it your way.”

He chuckled but said nothing.

She felt the bed dip as he sat on the edge, and heard the small pop as he opened the tube of cream, and then nothing.  She hadn’t realized she’d finally fallen asleep until she woke with a start sometime later, lying exactly as she had been before, covered with a blanket over the towel.  

She sat up and hugged the blanket around herself, though the room was so dark, she could have gone dancing naked across the room and no one would have seen a thing.  “Zaeed?”

“And Sleeping Beauty finally awakes, all on her own, without a goddamn kiss.” She couldn’t quite place where his voice was coming from until she took another look around the room and saw the faint glow of a cigar about where she figured the couch was.  

“You sound disappointed,” she teased, feeling around the bed for her duffel, but coming up short.  “Where’s my clothes, Prince Charming?”

“Can’t remember.  I’m turning on the lights.  You covered?”  

She nodded.

“I don’t have night vision, kitten.  You’re gonna have to say yes or no.”

She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity.  “Yes, I’m covered.”

A moment later, the sconces above the bed turned on and Katie discovered her duffel was exactly where she’d left it, and only an inch or two further than she’d reached.

Zaeed stubbed out his cigar and got up to cross the room.  “Don’t get dressed just yet.  I didn’t finish with your back.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged.  “I stopped when I realized you were asleep.”

“Well, aren’t you the surprising gentleman,” she murmured, hiding her face in the bedspread again to hide the sudden blush she felt rising on her cheeks.  After a moment, she turned her head to glance up at him as he sat on the edge of the bed.  “You could have finished, y’know.  I wouldn’t have minded.”

He shrugged again.  “Maybe not, or you might have woken up in the middle of it all, panicked, and punched me in the throat.”

“Oh I see.” She snorted a laugh. “Self-preservation then.”

“Mm.  Your left hook is legendary.”  The teasing quality of his voice vanished and he sounded almost somber when he continued, his hands pausing in their movement across her back.  “I just didn’t want you to wake up and think I was taking advantage of you or something.”

She sat up and turned to face him, catching the blanket in the nick of time to cover up.  “I would never think… I…”  She sighed and leaned back against the headboard.  “No, you’re right.  And thank you.  A lot of men wouldn’t be that considerate.”

“I know.”

She reached across the distance between them and squeezed his hand for a moment, both regretting it instantly as the cream squished between their fingers.  “Ugh.  Can three weeks be up already? This is… gross.”

“Very.  What the hell is this shit for anyway?”

She shrugged and carefully scooted off the bed to wash her hands in the sink.  “Hell if I know.  I barely listened to dosing instructions, never mind what everything’s actually for.”

He chuckled.  “Oh, you must be a goddamn peach as a patient.”

She grinned.  “You know it!”  

He joined her at the sink just as she’d finished.  “So, if you don’t know what it’s for, why use it?”

“It’s harmless,” she said, pulling a t-shirt and a pair of shorts from her duffel. “Probably some fancy version of aloe, to keep my skin from peeling or something.”

“Lovely.  Well, with that mental image, let’s eat.”

“Finally!” Katie hurried into her clothes while Zaeed’s attention was on the fridge in the corner.  “What’d you get?”

He shuddered as he turned with a plate in hand.  “Fried chicken.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comments, kudos, etc. they really keep me going :) hope y'all enjoy!

“... and then I just had to get out of there, so I came here.”

Katie knew how absolutely insane she probably looked, and sounded, sitting on the ground between her mother’s and grandmother’s graves, and talking to them.  But she hadn’t known where else to go.

She and Zaeed had  _ finally _ arrived in Solana Beach and immediately gone to the Argo.  During happy hour.  She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid to think she’d be able to handle that kind of crowd when she’d barely survived Ryan’s wedding.  Eventually, she was just going to have to realize that she would never feel comfortable in the Argo ever again.

And there was no way she was going back tonight anyway, not after the way she’d run out of there like she was being chased by a demon, which she was, really.

_ Stupid fucking bastard still –  _

Katie shook her head.  She would  _ not _ give  _ Him _ the satisfaction of controlling her anymore.  He’d been burning in hell for eight years and somehow had dragged her along with him.  But no more. Enough was enough.  Sure, she’d said the same thing on her sixteenth birthday, again on her eighteenth, and at Ryan’s wedding, and countless other times in between; it hadn’t yet actually stuck, but she figured if she made the decision often enough, one of these times, it was going to fucking work.

A twig snapped a few feet to her right, but she ignored whoever had come along to disturb her; she knew either her father or Zaeed would eventually find her, but that didn’t mean she had to acknowledge that they were there.  Yet.

“Lieutenant Shepard?”

Her head fell back against the tree she’d been using to prop herself up.   _ Another goddamn reporter.  When are they ever going to fucking leave me alone? _

She ignored them still until she heard them move closer, until she could feel them standing right beside her, inside her personal bubble.

“Lt. Shepard, I know that’s you, and I know you can hear me.”

_ So fucking what if I can? _ she thought bitterly, still not giving the reporter an ounce of attention.  Maybe if she stayed still long enough, the woman would think she was asleep, or dead. Not that that would make her go away.

“Lt. Shepard, why do you refuse to talk about what happened on Akuze? You have nothing to say to the families of the rest of your unit? Have you no respect for the dead?”

Katie finally snapped.  She shot up from her spot on the ground and faced the reporter and her goddamn camera. 

“First of all, anything I have to say to those families is between me and them, not the vultures of the media,” Katie snarled. “And secondly, I find it really fucking ironic that you are preaching to me about respect for the dead when you ambushed me in a cemetery and are quite literally standing on my mother's grave.  Now fuck off.”

Before the reporter could say another word, Katie pushed past her, knocking her clear of Lara Shepard’s grave, and stalked out of the cemetery.

With her luck, the report had been live, and everyone in the bar had seen it.  Which meant she was probably in for a lecture.  Or a group hug.  

Neither sounded appealing in the least, so Katie headed in the opposite direction of the Argo, determined to get lost just enough to spend a few peaceful hours alone.  

Of course, it didn’t last.  She’d been wandering the streets close to the beach for about twenty minutes when she heard footsteps behind her.  

“Lady, just what part of  _ fuck off _ did you not understand?” she growled as she spun around, only to find herself face to face with Zaeed.  “Shit.”

He smirked.  “Nice to see you too, kitten.”

“Sorry.  Thought you were –”

“Oh, I know. We all saw your ‘interview’ earlier.”

“Fuck me.”  Katie groaned.  “I was afraid of that.”

“If it helps, Jason and I thought your response was brilliant.”

“Thanks.” She sighed. “And Dad?”

“He's bloody furious, but not with you.”

“That’s something at least.” She hooked her arm through Zaeed’s as they started walking in the general direction of the Argo.  “So, how’d you find me?  You just out for an evening stroll?  Or are you  _ following orders _ again?”

“A little of both, really.  I absolutely refuse to stay in the same room with Steven when he’s angry.  He gets bloody overbearing, which I’m sure you’ve noticed…”

She nodded.  “Many times.”

“So, I decided I’d had enough of the Argo for tonight and left.  Before I did, he asked if I’d keep a look out for you, since he knew you weren’t likely to come back on your own.”

Katie snorted.  “So he  _ does _ learn, eventually.  Took him long enough.” 

“Don’t be too hard on him, kitten.  He’s just worried about you.”

“I know, I know.”  She stopped and leaned against a nearby building, ignoring the urge to use it to scratch her back.  “It’s just… frustrating.  I know he means well, you all do.  And I know he wants to help, but there’s nothing he can do to help me right now except leave me to work things out on my own.”

“You can’t keep keeping bottling this up, Katie.”  

She glanced over at Zaeed as he lit a cigar, surprised he’d used her name; he rarely called her anything but  _ kitten _ lately.  Not that she minded in the least. 

“I know that too,” she said quietly.  She heaved a deep sigh and finally admitted, “I’m scared, Z.  I’m terrified, really, that I’m just so screwed up with Akuze piled on top of every other fucked up part of my life, that the next therapist I go to is gonna take one look at me and stamp  _ Cat-6 _ right on my forehead.”

“I think I can help with that.”  

“How?  You have some magic cure to make it all go away?”

He shook his head.  “There’s no magic cure,” he muttered, his teeth clenched tight around his cigar.  “Believe me, I’ve looked, for more than a goddamn decade.”

In the few years they’d known each other, they’d never talked about his past; granted, they’d never talked about hers either til the last couple of days, but that’s because he’d been involved, to an extent.  He’d already known all about it.  All she knew of his past was what he’d told her the day they’d met, that he’d been in the Alliance and turned mercenary not long after the war.  But there was… something else there, something that still haunted his dreams as much as The Bastard and Akuze haunted hers.  

After awhile, they started walking again, a slower pace than before as Zaeed told her about the years after the war, when he’d founded the Blue Suns with a supposed friend, who had later betrayed him and left him for dead.  He’d spent a long time recovering, most of it spent drinking at the Argo; he’d even stayed with Jason and Ryan in the beginning.  

“I knew I couldn’t just sit and drink for the rest of my life; might as well have let Vido kill me outright if I’d done that,” Zaeed said bitterly.  “But, like you and the pain pills, drinking was all that let me sleep at night, and even then it was iffy.  Eventually, Jason told me about a PTSD therapy group up in San Diego, started after the war; it’s changed hands a couple of times since then but it’s still going, meets every Tuesday and Thursday.”

Katie frowned.  “And you think they can help me?”

“Worth a shot at least.”

“But –”

“They won’t judge you.”  Zaeed put a hand on her arm, apparently afraid she was going to run off again.  “Most everyone who goes is Alliance or former Alliance.  A lot of ‘em are in the same goddamn boat you are, kitten.  Lost a lot all at once, or saw horrors no one would believe unless they were there.”

It sounded promising, more so than one on one with a shrink would be anyway. And she knew she had to do  _ something _ , or she was going to fail her psych evaluation the next time she went up to Vancouver.

Still she hesitated. “Did it help you?”

“Wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.”  He shook his head with a small smile.  “Like I said, there’s no magic cure that’ll just make it all go away, but this is something.”

She sighed.  “Yeah, suppose you’re right.”

He glanced at his omni-tool.  “If you’re up for it, I think there’s a meeting tonight.”

She snorted.  “After the shit I’ve done in the last couple of hours?  No thanks.  I think I’ll just go dig a hole on the beach and bury myself in it ‘til the next one, or the one after that.”

“You can’t hide forever, kitten.  Besides, everyone in the group has done shit like that too.”

“On TV?”

He shrugged.  “Some of them. I’d be surprised if there weren’t Marines there who'd been groundside on Elysium or Mindoir.  Reporters hounded the hell out of them too.”

“True.”  She knew it was better to get the first time over with sooner rather than later; even if she made a fool of herself, at least she’d tried.  “Fine, I’ll go.  But only if you go in with me.”

Zaeed nodded.  “Of course.  Wouldn’t miss it.” 

As they walked to the nearest cab stand, Katie sent a vid chat hail to her father.  She hoped he wouldn’t make a huge thing out of it all, that she’d barely just arrived before she’d run off again and now she was leaving altogether, at least overnight.

“Where have you been?” he asked by way of greeting when he finally answered her hail.  “We’ve been worried sick.”

She sighed and made a conscious effort not to roll her eyes.  “I’m fine, Dad.  Just went for a walk around town.  And then I ran into Zaeed.”

“Oh, good.  So you’re on your way back now?”

“No, not tonight.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I’m… we’re going to a group meeting.”

Her father raised an eyebrow.  “You, voluntarily going to therapy?”

She couldn’t stop the eyeroll then.  “Yes, Dad.  Me, voluntarily going to therapy.”

“Wait, why did you say you wouldn’t be back tonight?”

“It’s in San Diego, a group Zaeed knows.”

“Hmm.”

“What, Dad?  Now you have a problem with this too?”

He shook his head.  “No, not… no, I don’t.  If this is what it takes to get you to finally go to a therapy session, then so be it.”

She scowled.  “Only you could make this into a  _ bad _ thing.”

“It’s not a bad thing, Katie,” he insisted.  “I suppose I just wish you’d listened to me half as much when you were a teenager as you listen to Zaeed now.”

“Did you ever suggest, or even consider, group therapy?”

“Well, no.”

“There ya go then.  And I did argue a bit first; it’s not like he said ‘let’s go’ and I immediately jumped at the chance.”

Her father chuckled.  “Of course not. I would have checked to see if hell had frozen over if you had, sweetheart.  Even Zaeed Massani can’t overcome your stubborn streak that easily.”

Katie rolled her eyes again.  “‘Night, Dad.  We’ll be back in the morning, I promise.”

“Good night, sweetheart.  I love you, and I’m proud of you.  You know that, right?”

She smiled.  “I know, Dad.  Love you, too.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and lovely comments :) Hope y'all enjoy!

Katie thought the ride up to San Diego was entirely too short; she hadn’t had any time to prepare or calm herself down.  And now, it was too late.  She sat beside Zaeed, fidgeting nervously as people filed into the church hall and filled in the circle of chairs in the middle of the room.

She was thankful that everyone else seemed to know each other and all but ignored her.

After everyone was settled, a short, middle-aged woman with dark grey hair stood up and introduced herself as Ellie Fletcher, a veteran of the First Contact War and current leader of the group.

“I see we have a few new faces this evening and,” for a moment, she glanced at Zaeed with a faint smile, “a couple of old-timers who haven’t been here in ages.”  She sat down again and gestured to the young man sitting to her left.  “Andrew, how about you start tonight.”

Andrew, tall, skinny, and about Katie’s age, nodded once and stood up.  Katie’s attention drifted in and out as people stood up one by one to introduce themselves; some gave more information than others; the other newbies seemed almost as nervous as she was and barely gave more than their names.

Finally, Zaeed stood up and introduced himself, though he didn’t seem all that keen on sharing either.  All too soon, he sat down again.  He squeezed Katie’s hand and gave her an encouraging smile even as he gave her a nudge to the edge of her seat.

_ Breathe, Katie.  Just breathe. _

She stumbled a bit as she got to her feet.  “Hi, I’m Katie Shepard and I… um…”  She faltered as she glanced around the circle, every single pair of eyes focused on hers.  “I’m...  um…”

It was too much.  Too many faces, too much attention.  Just… too much.

Her last words came out on a rushed squeak.  “I’msosorryIcan’tdothisIgottago.”

And then she ran from the room.     


* * *

Zaeed wasn’t surprised in the least that Katie was on the run for the third time in as many hours; she’d been skittish since the moment he’d suggested the spur of the moment trip.

He got up to follow her after Ellie all but stared him down, but a ping on his omni-tool – a note from Katie that simply said “don’t follow me, yet.” – made him pause halfway to the door.  On the one hand, he wanted to respect her wish to be alone; on the other, he was apprehensive that she might do something rash.

In the end, he decided to stay put until the group took a coffee break, long enough to give her the privacy she wanted but not so long she’d get into too much trouble.

Hopefully. 

He tapped out a note to her as he sprinted for the cabstand outside the church twenty minutes later, wondering how long he’d have to wait until she replied.  

Apparently, not long.  The cab he’d hailed had only just landed when his omni-tool pinged again.

He barely resisted the urge to bang his head against the cab’s door as he read her reply: “I’m at the Sidecar.”

Zaeed knew the Sidecar very well; in the first few weeks after Jason had convinced him to join the therapy group, he’d frequented the Sidecar after each session, and then gone back to the Argo to sleep it off.

But that had been over a decade ago.  In the years since he’d last stepped foot in the place, the Sidecar’s reputation had gone from quirky to seedy and beyond.

“Why here, of all places?” Zaeed asked, trying and failing to keep the exasperation out of his voice when he found Katie in a back corner booth ten minutes later.  “There’s a bar not a block from the bloody church, y’know.”

Katie rolled her eyes.  “That’s why, Z.  It was too close.  I needed space.” She shrugged.  “Besides, I’ve been here before.  It used to be a favorite hangout for the marines back when I was stationed here.”

“Hmm.”  He sat down across from her and picked up the tumbler she’d just set down.  “And why a bar at all.  Aren’t you supposed to not drink during your medical leave?”

“I’m not.” She gestured to the drink in his hand.  “Go on, take a sip.”

He gave her a questioning look before he lifted the glass, and took a sniff and a sip; carbonation bubbles shot up his nose and he coughed as he slid the drink back to her.  “That is not a Jack and Coke.”

She snorted.  “Told you.”

He rolled his eyes and ordered a whiskey from the tableside menu.  “So.”

“So.”

He sighed deeply.  “I’m sorry, kitten.  I shouldn’t have pushed you to come up here when you clearly weren’t ready.”

She shrugged.  “‘S okay.”

“No.  I should have let it go instead of –”

“Zaeed, relax.”  She reached out to put a hand on top of his on the table.  “I’m all right.  I needed to do this, even if I didn’t make it through.”

“If you say so.  Will you be coming back next week or no?”

“Dunno yet.”  Another shrug.  “Right now, I’m taking it a day at a time, hell an hour at a time. Y’know?”  

He definitely knew that feeling, all too well.  It had been the way he’d gotten through the days, weeks, months after Vido’s betrayal.  Fuck, it was still the way he got through most days, though not lately.  Apparently helping Katie survive this current trip to hell had distracted him from his own demons, if only temporarily.  

“Screw it,” she said suddenly, making a grab for the menu.  “I need a drink.”

He snatched it out of her reach.  “Why?”

“Because I feel like getting drunk?”  She snorted a laugh.  “You’re the last person I’d expect to judge me for that.”

“Not judging, kitten, just questioning.  Wondering if you’ve thought about the consequences.”

“What, mixing alcohol and painkillers?” She shook her head slightly.  “Doesn’t matter.  I haven’t taken any pills since lunch the day I left the hospital.”

He blinked in surprise.  “Really?  I could have sworn…”

“Never got around to taking them again, that first night at the motel, and then just… didn’t take them again.” She shifted on the bench to lean against the wall, pulling her legs up to her chest.  “It’s not like I threw them out or anything; they’re still in my duffel if I need them.”

Before Zaeed could say anything else, a waitress delivered the whiskey he’d ordered.

Katie snagged the shot and downed it, and immediately ordered a double round.

Zaeed held up a hand.  “Make that a bottle and a second glass.”

As the waitress walked away, Katie’s eyes lit up and she smiled for probably the first time all day.  “You’re the best, Z.”

“I’m sure you’re the only one who thinks so, kitten.”

“That’s probably true.”  She laughed and then raised an eyebrow when their waitress returned almost immediately with the bottle and shot glass.  “Well that was quick.”

The waitress shrugged. “Don’t need the bartender for this, y’know?”  She gave them a quick smile and left.  “Enjoy.”

Katie was quiet as she watched Zaeed pour whiskey into the glass she’d stolen from him and the second the waitress had brought.

She lifted her glass and murmured “cheers” before she downed the shot and set the glass down, looking like she was a million miles away from the bar, from anywhere.  “So, who’s Ellie?” she asked after they’d gone through a few rounds, her voice barely carrying across the table.  “I mean, who is she  _ really _ ?”

The questions caught Zaeed off guard and he faltered for a moment as he poured another round.  “What d’you mean who is she really?” 

Katie shrugged but said nothing.

“She’s…”  He didn’t have a damn clue what he was supposed to say; he honestly didn’t know what she was driving at. “She’s exactly who she said she was, far as I know.  She was in the First Contact War, maybe a major or captain, maybe a commander, dunno if she ever said.  I know she’s a few years older than Jason.  As far as I know, she was around when the therapy group started.”

“And you knew each other back when you were going to the group yourself?” Katie bypassed the glass this time and took a swig from the bottle.  “Is she… a good person?”

“Yeah, we knew each other, in that we were in the group together, nothing more than that.  And yes, I’d definitely say she’s a good person.”  Zaeed raised an eyebrow.  “Seriously, kitten, where are you going with this?”

Another swig and then her head fell back against the wall.  A shrug and silence.

“If you’re asking, in some roundabout way if we ever dated,” he said hesitantly, “then the answer is no.”  

Katie shrugged again.  “Dunno why I asked, really.  Just curious.” She glanced at him and then quickly looked away, though he could just make out the blush rising up her cheeks. “And for the record, you’re the only one around here who mentioned dating.”

“Are you –”

“Jealous?” she said, the single word almost spat out.  “Of a woman you knew before we’d ever met who smiled for half a second while glancing around a room?”

Zaeed leaned back in the booth, his arms crossed over his chest and waited for her to continue.  She hadn’t drunk much yet, but she was already in her drunk chat phase.  

Or so he thought.

“First of all,” she continued after a couple more swigs from the rapidly emptying whiskey bottle, “what would I have to be jealous about?  We’re just friends.  Right?  There’s no… nothing between us.  Probably,” she added in barely audible whisper.

Zaeed chewed the inside of his lip to keep from interrupting.  Whether she was drunk or not, it seemed like she’d been waiting a long while to say all this.

“Second of all, even if there  _ was _ something between us, I don’t do jealous.” She hesitated a split second before she pulled the collar of her shirt aside about an inch or so and jabbed a finger at the gunshot scar a few millimeters below her collarbone.  “This is jealous,” she said bitterly.  “This, and just about every other shit thing in my life happened because that bastard was  _ jealous _ .”  She sighed and slumped down further in her seat.  “I’d be lying if I said I’d never  _ thought _ about us, you an’ me, but…”

When she didn’t continue further, Zaeed decided maybe it was time to call it a night, if only to keep her from bolting for a record fourth time.  That was assuming she could even stand; except for three or four shots he’d had at the beginning, she’d drunk the whole bloody bottle of whiskey herself.

He closed their tab and after a small struggle of wills, he finally coaxed her out of the booth, wrapping an arm firmly around her waist to keep her upright.  “Come on, kitten, let’s get you home.” 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments, kudos, etc. They really keep me going :)
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

Katie groaned as she tried to open her eyes.  

_ Nope, too bright.  Unlike you.  You’re a fucking idiot. _

She had never been so hungover in her entire life, and she never wanted to feel like this ever again.

_ No more alcohol.  Ever. _

_ Well, maybe not  _ _ ever _ _. _

She had only vaguely fuzzy memories of the previous night – the only clear one was that a bottle of whiskey had been involved – and she definitely had no clue where she was.

_ What the fuck is wrong with you?   _

Once her eyes finally decided to cooperate and stay open, she rolled off of an unfamiliar bed onto an equally unfamiliar floor and decided that was good enough for the moment.  

“‘Bout bloody time you got up, kitten.” 

Katie tried to lift her head to glare up at Zaeed, to tell him to be quieter, but her head felt like it was filled with sand.  So, she slowly moved her head until she was eye-to-toe with the foot closest to her and spoke to it instead.  “Shush. Quiet. Too loud.”

He chuckled and crouched down beside her.  “This better?” he asked, none too softly.  

This time, she rolled onto her back so she could glare at him without moving her head.  That proved to be a mistake mere moments later, as a wave of nausea overcame her without warning.  She sat up faster than was probably advisable, narrowly missing smacking her head on Zaeed’s knee.  She looked around frantically for anything that looked solid and deep enough to barf into; she didn’t think any part of her was capable of making it to a sink or toilet in time, even if she knew where one was.  

Her eyes finally landed on a bucket near the bed, which she’d somehow avoided hitting on her way to the floor.  She stuck a hand out, grasped the edge and pulled it over in the nick of time.

When she’d finally finished spilling her guts, for the time being, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and closed her eyes as she leaned up against the side of the bed, thankful for the cold metal of the frame against the back of her neck.

“Feel better?”

She flinched slightly, opening her eyes to find Zaeed still crouched in the same spot, the expression on his face warring between concern and amusement.

“Not the first time you’ve done that in the last few hours,” he continued with a slight nod toward the bucket.  “Wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t the last either.  That was a stupidly impressive amount of alcohol you drank last night.”

She groaned.  “Bite me, Z.  I was in a… bad place.”

“There’s no doubt of that.”

“I meant emotionally.  Idiot.”

He heaved a sigh as he stood up.  “So did I.”  He disappeared through a doorway she hadn’t had the time to notice before and returned a moment later with a glass of water and a blissfully cool wet washcloth.

She scrubbed the cloth over her face and sipped the water, praying there wouldn’t be another  session with the bucket anytime soon.  

“Thanks for these,” she said quietly, raising the glass slightly before she put it on the floor beside her.  A memory from the bar – of raising a shot glass and downing the contents – came back to her in a rush, but she pushed it away.  She was pretty sure she’d said shit she’d never have said otherwise, and she didn’t really want to deal with it at the moment.  She forced herself to concentrate on the room, and the man now leaning against the doorway to the bathroom.

Any trace of amusement she’d seen before was gone, replaced entirely with concern.  For some reason, she found it mildly unnerving so she went back to studying the room.

Wholly unfamiliar when she’d first woken up, now she vaguely recognized it, or at least thought she might have been in a similar room at some point.

“Where are we?” she asked while studying the pattern on the carpet.

“My apartment in Solana Beach.”  

“Oh.”  

“The guest room, specifically.”

Katie raised an eyebrow.  “You?  A guest room?”

“All right, so it’s my office; but right now, it’s a guest room.”

“Why do you have a bed in your office?”

Zaeed snorted.  “You always ask this many questions when you’re hungover?” 

“Dunno.  Been awhile.”

He sat on the edge of the bed.  “It’s here in case I’m too tired to make it to my bed to sleep, or if I need sleep but can’t go too far from the computers.”

“Oh,” she said again, resting her head against his leg, and then, “Thanks.”

“You said that already.”

“No, I mean… for…”  She briefly lost her train of thought as she felt him lightly massaging his thumbs against her temple.  “For last night, and… not making a big deal about… everything.”

“Can’t say I wasn’t surprised by some of your  _ revelations _ , but I don’t take anything said after the third shot as gospel anyway.  How d’you feel now?”

“Not spectacular, but better. My back is killing me, but I think my headache is almost gone,” she murmured, all but melting into a puddle.  “We should do this more often.”

He chuckled.  “That so?”

“Just… this part.” She tried to reach up to tap a finger on his hand to emphasize exactly what she meant, but her arms felt so weighed down – by general fatigue or the hangover, she didn’t know – she only succeeded in poking herself in the eye.  “Fuck.”

“You all right?”

“Brilliant,” she grumbled, half in response to his question, half in reaction to her omni-tool chirping with a hail from her father.  “And the headache’s back in force.”

“You’re not gonna answer that, are you?” Zaeed asked after she made no move to even silence the alert.  He groaned.  “You’re gonna make me talk to him, aren’t you?”

“This face isn’t exactly one I’d want him to see,” she said quietly, tipping her head back to look up at Zaeed, “to prove I was okay after all the  _ excitement _ from yesterday.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “And you think he wants to see  _ this _ ugly mug instead?”

“You’re so not ugly.”  She shook her head.  “In any case, one of us should answer it before he gives up, or panics or something, and calls you.  Or worse, comes over.”

“I’m still thinking  it should be you, kitten.”

“And I’m thinking ‘bite me.’”

Zaeed chuckled.  “Say that again and I might just do it.”

Katie stuck her tongue out at him and tossed her still-chirping omni-tool to him.  “Tag, you’re it.”

He grumbled half-heartedly as he tapped the button to answer the hail and they both braced for the inevitable barrage of questions from her father.

Instead, they heard a high pitched squeal, followed by a brief pause, and then – 

“That is  _ not _ Kay-dee!” Emma shouted in a matter-of-fact tone that Katie was positive she’d picked up from her great-grandmother.

“What do you mean that’s not Katie?” Admiral Hackett shouted back almost immediately from the other room.  “Who the hell is it?”

Katie snorted a laugh when she heard Sarah chiding him.  “Language, Admiral!”  

Emma had an immediate answer to his question.  “Is Zeeeeeeeee,” she squealed again, drawing out the pronunciation to an absurd length.

Katie groaned.  That was sure to get her father’s attention.

She glanced up at Zaeed and squeezed his hand in a silent plea for help; he slid off the bed to sit beside her not a moment before her father appeared on the screen alongside Emma.

“Hi Kay-dee!” Emma waved enthusiastically.

Katie smiled.  “Hiya, Em.”

“When you comin’ to see me?”

“Soon, I promise.”

“Yay!”

“Hey Emma, I gotta talk to your uncle Steven, ‘k?” Katie said gently, noticing the growing frustration  on her father’s face.  “But hopefully I’ll be by your grandpa’s house in a little bit.”

“‘K. Bye-bye!” A moment later, Emma toppled from view, chanting “Kay-dee’s comin’!” as she went on her way.

Katie couldn’t help but laugh.  “So that’s what you’ve been dealing with the last few days?”

Her father nodded.  “Non-stop all day long except during naptime, which is entirely too short.” He sighed and abruptly changed the subject.  “So how was last night?”

She shrugged.  “All right, I guess.”

“You sure?  You look a little… green.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about, Dad,” she said, plastering an innocent smile on her face.  “I'm perfectly –”

Before she could finish the sentence, she felt her stomach preparing for another escape attempt.  She immediately clamped her mouth shut and scrambled up to make a mad dash for the bathroom, praying she wouldn’t fall on her face before she got there.

By the time she was done and slumped against the wall beside the toilet, she’d decided she’d rather die than go through that again.  Her throat was raw, her stomach was beyond sore, and she was almost positive she’d pulled a muscle in her back at some point.

A few minutes later, Zaeed knocked on the door but didn’t open it.  “You still alive in there, kitten?” 

“Not sure,” she croaked.  She slowly pushed herself up the wall until she stood on her own two feet.  “I’m gonna take a shower, then I’ll let you know.”

He chuckled and she heard his footsteps fading as he left the bedroom.  Once she was sure he was gone, she inched her way to the door and out into the bedroom to retrieve her duffel, and the bucket she’d used earlier.  Carrying the bucket the few feet back to the bathroom nearly made her sick again, but she held herself together long enough to dump the contents into the toilet and clean the bucket in the shower.  

Almost an hour later, she finally emerged from the bathroom. The process of showering – not to mention brushing her teeth several times over – had been both slow and painful.  Her burns were still sensitive to water pressure, and whatever muscle she'd pulled had protested vehemently with every movement she'd made. She'd nearly bitten through her lip trying not to scream while toweling off, and again while gingerly pulling on a tank top and shorts.

She shuffled into the living room only to find it empty.  

“Zaeed?”

“Out here,” he called from the balcony, where he leaned against the railing, a cigar clenched between his teeth.

“Well, this sight sure looks familiar,” Katie said as she stood in the doorway, briefly admiring the view.

“That so?” He turned and grinned around the cigar. “You look a right sight better than you did an hour ago.  Feeling any better?”

She shrugged slightly and walked over to flop down in the nearest chair – and immediately jumped up again, yelping in pain as the cushion pressed against her burns, and the sudden movement pulled her sore muscle even more.  “Shitshitshitshitshit!”

Zaeed raised an eyebrow. “That was unexpected. What's wrong?”

“Remember how I said earlier that my back hurt?  Well, it hurts more now.” Katie sighed. “And I can't do anything about it, because I have to eat to take my pain pills, and I don't trust my stomach with food yet.”

“What about the cream for your burns?” Zaeed stubbed out his cigar.  “At least those would feel better?”

Katie gave another half-shrug. “Worth a shot.”

Zaeed rolled his eyes.  “Your faith in modern medicine is bloody astounding.”

“Says the man who cringes every time he sets foot in a hospital.”

“And the woman who tries  _ escape _ every time she’s in a hospital.”  She gawked at him and he snorted.  “Yes, I definitely heard all about your escape attempt from St. Luke’s that New Year’s before the wedding.”

“Buncha gossipy bastards,” she grumbled as she followed him back into the bedroom.  She rifled through her duffel until she finally found the cream, hidden in a tangle of socks.  “I wasn’t escaping the  _ hospital _ , just my dad.”

“Oh well that's different, and completely understandable.”

“At least  _ someone  _ understands, even if it's years after the fact.” She started to pull up the hem of her tank top and almost immediately stopped.  “I don't think I can do this.”

“Do what?”

“Take off my shirt.  I can't lift my arms that high.”

“How the hell’d you get it on in the first place?”

“Pure stubbornness.”

Zaeed snorted a laugh. “That sounds about right.” He gestured to the bed.  “Lay down on your stomach and I can just pull the shirt up enough to get to your back.”

Katie shook her head.  “Don’t think I can do that either.  If I lay down, I’m not getting back up.”

“Fair enough.”  He sat in the middle of the bed and patted the spot in front of him.  “Sit here.  It should work almost as well as laying down.”

She gingerly climbed onto the bed and sat down with her back facing him, hugging her chest as he lifted the back of her shirt up until it was bunched at her neck.  She shivered faintly when his fingers glided across her bare skin. 

“Cold?” 

She nearly lied and said “yes” – until the cream hit the burn between her shoulder blades and all that came out was an indignant squeak.

He didn’t laugh, but she could hear the smirk in his voice when he said “sorry,” a moment before he repeated the action with the burn in the center of her back.

If she’d been able to move more easily, she’d have spun around to glare at him.  “Shit! Warn me before you do that again.”

“Sorry,” he said again, this time with a chuckle.  “Figured I’d get the worst of it done first, y’know?”

“That’s not how you did it the other night.” 

“Yeah, and it was bloody disgusting, this shit all over the place.” The bed bounced slightly as he shuddered.  “Not something I want to repeat if I can help it.”

She conceded the point and bobbed her head once in a slight nod.  “Go on,” she said, bracing for the next blast of cream.  “Get it over with.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence for a few minutes, until the tube of cream landed with a  _ thud _ on the bedside table.

“Done with part one,” Zaeed said.  “But unless your back’s feeling better and you can stretch, you’re gonna have to stand up.  It’s fucking awkward trying to reach your lower back.”

Katie didn’t even attempt to stretch forward, only carefully scooted across to the edge of the bed and stood up.  She shivered again when she felt him move to sit right behind her and one hand settled on her waist while the other went to work rubbing in the cream.

She scrambled to think of something to keep her mind off of the way his hands felt, the one on her waist flexing each time the other moved to a different location on her back.  

Finally, she blurted out the question that had been on her mind all morning.  “So, what was it that I said that surprised you last night?” 

Both hands tensed for a moment before the one on her back resumed its work, but Zaeed said nothing until he’d finished altogether and pulled her shirt back into place.

Katie turned to face him but he ignored her in favor of concentrating on cleaning the cream from his hands with a washcloth. 

Once he’d finished, he tossed the cloth onto the nightstand and patted the space beside him on the bed.  “Sit.”

“Okay…” Apprehension set in as she eased back onto the bed.  “It wasn’t something I said, was it?  I did something horrible and stupid and –”

“Relax, kitten.”  Zaeed shook his head as he took one of her hands in his.  “It was nothing like that.” 

“Then…”

He hesitated a second more before he said, “After a bloody spectacular rant about jealousy, that came out of nowhere by the way, the last thing you said before we left the bar was ‘I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought about us, you and me, but…’”

Katie thought if it was possible to die of embarrassment, she’d have dropped dead in that moment.  She finally found enough voice to ask, “But what?”

Zaeed shrugged.  “Hell if I know.  That was literally the last thing you said until you told my feet to shut up this morning.”

“Oh.”  Katie looked down at her hands, picking at the polish Emma had attempted to put on her nails the last time Jason had brought her to visit.  “The end of that sentence, whenever it crosses my mind,is ‘but I didn’t think you’d be interested.’  But not like a… relationship-y thing, just friends with benefits or whatever.”  She chewed her lip and glanced up at Zaeed. “Figures my stupid drunk voice would bring it up.”

“For what it’s worth,” he said after a prolonged silence, “I wasn’t surprised at the idea, just that you’d thought about it too.”

Her head shot up so fast she winced as her back protested.  “‘Too’?”

He nodded.  “But as you said, I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“Fuck.”  She sagged against the headboard and giggled.  “We’re a pair of fucking idiots.”  

“Interesting choice of words.”

She rolled her eyes.  “You know what I mean.”

He chuckled and brought one of her hands up to kiss her knuckles.  “Yes, yes I do.”

Her head fell back against the headboard and she heaved a sigh.  “The next three weeks are going to be pure torture.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, bookmarks, comments, etc. They really keep me going :)

“When’s my Kay-dee comin’ back?” 

Emma’s question, accented by tearful sniffles, carried through the front door of Jason’s house as Katie got into a cab bound for the spaceport.  Her last three weeks of medical leave had nearly come to an end and she was finally on her way back to Vancouver for a physical and the dreaded psych eval.

It had been three weeks of hell, and the soul-baring conversation she’d had with Zaeed hadn’t helped in the least.  In fact, it had made it worse, for both of them.  The second week in, neither of them could stand the tension between them anymore and she’d gone to stay with Jason – much to Emma’s delight – and Zaeed had left town altogether on a bounty.  

He’d promised to be in Vancouver when she was done with her evaluations, for which she was grateful.  No matter the outcome, particularly of the psych eval, she knew she was going to want to get drunk, either to celebrate or to mourn the loss of her career.  And no matter the reason, she couldn’t think of anyone better to drink with than Zaeed.

Confining herself to the house hadn’t been a problem, until Sarah had asked if Katie was planning to continue therapy sessions with the group in San Diego.  Katie had panicked momentarily, until she remembered that Ellie Fletcher, the group leader, had told her that many past members still checked in via vid-chat every so often.  It was the best of both worlds: the structure and help of the therapy without having to leave her room.  

But now, finally, it was all over.  At least she hoped it was.  Both her father and Jason had offered to go with her, a shoulder to lean on, but she’d declined both.  Not only could she blend into the crowds better if she was alone, but they’d likely spend the entire flight trying to reassure her that she’d be fine.  She was nervous enough as it was, without their platitudes.

The last three weeks might have gone by so slowly that time had seemed to stand still, but now, it seemed to be speeding up.  In what felt like literal seconds, Katie’s cab was pulling up to a stand at the spaceport.

Engulfed in the crowds milling around the common areas, she hid her face in the depths of one of Jeff’s flight school hoodies she’d “borrowed” the last time they’d been to Arcturus to visit his parents.  She just prayed no one would recognize her.  “Fans,” reporters, or worst of all, anyone who blamed her for the lives lost on Akuze… she couldn’t deal with any of that right now.  

It hadn’t been her fault, and any rational person  _ knew _ that, but she knew that those blinded by grief might lash out at her anyway, instead of blaming whatever monster set the trap for her unit.  She still might not remember much of anything that had happened that night, but after reading everything she could on the investigation that the Alliance had launched afterwards, she had absolutely no doubt it had been a trap.

By the time she’d made it to the correct boarding area and onto the shuttle, she was regretting making Jason stay home.  She was still glad her father hadn’t come – he would stick out like a sore thumb in this crowd – but Jason would have been a good shield for the flight.  

_ No point in dwelling on it now, idiot _ , she chastised herself as she made her way to the very back of the shuttle, to a seat in the very last row, and turned to face the window.  If she was lucky, anyone who sat next to her would think she was staring out the window or asleep and leave her alone.  Unless it was an old woman; they always tended to be chatty no matter what.

Two blessedly silent hours later, the shuttle arrived in Vancouver.  Katie waited until everyone else had departed before she got up, making sure the hood was still in place as she left the relative safety of the shuttle.

“Lt. Shepard?”

She groaned and rolled her eyes, but as she’d done with the reporter in the cemetery, she ignored the man who’d called her name.  

And just like the reporter, he persisted.

“Kathrine, there’s no use hiding your face.  I already know it’s you.”

She stopped dead in her tracks.  No one, not even her own parents, had  _ ever _ called her Kathrine – well, except the headmistress at the academy on Arcturus and Dr. River. 

She spun on her heel and found herself face to face with David Anderson, an Alliance captain and one of her father’s oldest friends. And then she understood: he’d only called her Kathrine to get a rise out of her, to get her to stop walking without resorting to physical means.

She narrowed her eyes and took a step closer to him.  “Dad sent you, didn’t he?”   

Anderson chuckled.  “ _ Sent _ might be a bit of a strong word.  Steven knew I was in town, asked if I could spare a moment to make sure you got where you were going without harassment.”

She rolled her eyes but secretly, she was grateful for the company.  She didn’t think a hoodie would actually keep her hidden all that long.

“Shall we?”

She nodded once.  “Let’s get this over with.”  Anderson raised an eyebrow and she cracked a smile as she clarified. “The evaluations.  I’d much rather spend that time catching up on your adventures.”

“Mmm I bet.  Those suckers can be brutal, but they’re over quick enough.”

“Quick in what universe?” Katie muttered.  Aloud she asked, “How long have you been here?  Were you here a few weeks ago when I was confined to that godawful hospital?”

“I’ve been stationed here for a few months.  I popped in once while you were out of it but I’d been out of town since then, until a couple of days ago.”

The conversation shifted as they reached a cabstand just outside the terminal.  

“Not up for walking, Captain?” 

Anderson shook his head.  “Don’t think I can’t see what you’re trying to do, Katie.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she protested, attempting an innocent smile that faltered almost immediately.

His expression and tone turned sympathetic then.  “I know you’re nervous, but you’ll be fine.”

She frowned.  “You’ve all known me my whole life. How are every single one of you so goddamn optimistic?”

“You’ve had psych evals before, and you’ve passed all of them with no trouble.”

“So?”

“So why should this one be any different?”

“It… because… I...” Katie sighed.  “Maybe you’re right.”

Anderson smiled.  “I knew you’d come to realize that eventually.”

Katie spent the short ride across the city steadying her nerves.  She wasn’t worried about the physical side of the visit; as far as she could tell, she was entirely healed.  She’d been careful not to do too much, even while keeping up with an energetic toddler, and Sarah had helped her put the cream on her back every night. 

As for the psych evaluation, she knew Anderson and the others were probably right, that she’d be fine; but the others she’d had – besides the one when she’d enlisted – hadn’t been from military doctors, nor had they had such far-reaching consequences.  Besides, she always had a sense of dread before any appointment with a shrink.

“We’re here.”

Katie nodded mutely and followed Anderson out of the cab.

“You want company in the waiting room?”

“I think I’ll be okay.”  She gave him a small smile and a salute.  “Thanks for the escort, and the pep talk.”

He returned the salute with a smile of his own.  “If all goes well,  _ which it will _ ,” he said, emphasizing the last three words, “I hope we’ll see each other more often in the field.”

“Oh? You’re looking to add an emotionally compromised prankster to your crew?”

He chuckled.  “No, I’m looking to add a brilliant soldier that I know and trust to my crew.”

“Oh.” Katie blushed. “Thank you, sir.”

Anderson gave a short nod and gestured toward the front of the medical building.  “Now get going or this conversation will have been for nothing.”

* * *

 

_ How have you been feeling?  Any nightmares?  Do you remember what happened that night?  Do you feel the trauma you’ve sustained from this tragedy will negatively impact your ability to perform your duties? _

Katie squinted as she stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight, relieved the questions had stopped and the evaluations were over, but still terrified of what the results would be.  Every other time she’d had a psych eval, the doctors had given her or her father the results right away, but this time, they’d said they would contact her within 72 hours.

She was fucking sick of waiting around.  She wanted to be out in the field again, especially if said ‘field’ was on a ship.  She was getting more frustrated by the day, not having any real outlet for her pent-up energy.  If she didn’t get some sort of release soon, she was honestly afraid she might explode.

“Y’know, for someone who’s spent the last month being hounded by the bloody media, you’re doing a piss poor job of hiding from them at the moment.” 

Katie squeaked, stumbling as she nearly fell off the wall where she’d been pacing for the last ten minutes.  

“If you meant to give me a heart attack, Zaeed Massani, you very nearly succeeded,” she mockingly scolded him as she braced her hands on his shoulders and jumped from the wall.

“Sorry,” he murmured, sounding only slightly apologetic, and pulled her into his arms.

Some of the tension from the day melted away while they stood wrapped up in each other for a long minute.

Finally, he pulled back just enough so he could look at her, his eyes seemingly searching hers for the answer to a question before he’d asked it.  “So, how’d it go?”

“Passed the physical ‘with flying colors,’ as the doc put it.  But the psych eval?  Not a damn clue. Won’t know for a few days.”

“So you’re stuck here until then?”

She shook her head.  “No, I’m free to leave.  They’ll contact me via a secure vidcom link.  Probably Dad too,” she added in an undertone.

“Why is that such a bad thing?”

She narrowed her eyes at him.  “You’ve known him for twenty years and you’re still asking that question?”  She sagged against him and sighed.  “If I pass, I’ll get an ‘I told you so’ look; if I fail, I’ll get smothered in sympathy.”

“You’ll get those reactions anyway, kitten.”

“What’s with everyone and their stupid flawless logic today?” she grumbled halfheartedly, pulling away again.  “It’s infuriating.  You know that, right?”

He snorted a laugh.  “Can’t speak for whoever ‘everyone’ is, but, why d’you think I do it?”

“Because you’re an ass.” She toyed with the zipper pull on his leather jacket.  “So, what do you want to do tonight?”

“Well, there’s one answer I could give that would likely get me slapped.”  There was a hint of a smirk on his lips as he tugged her closer until their bodies were flush against each other.  “But –”

“‘But’ nothing.” Katie stood up on her toes until they were nearly the same height and their lips were inches apart.  “I’ve been waiting three long weeks for this,” she murmured.  “Just about all I thought about since that night we talked.”

“Me too.”  Zaeed threaded his fingers in her hair and pulled her impossibly close, his lips barely brushing against hers.  “You sure you want to do this here, out in the open?”

“Too late to think about that now.  Anyone was gonna take notice, they already have.  And besides which, I don’t care.”  She lightly tugged on the hair at the nape of his neck.  “Now shut up and kiss me.”

She hadn’t been totally honest when she said she didn’t care, but she’d worry about it later.  At the moment, she  _ didn’t _ care.  She’d dreamed of this moment more times than she could count in the last three weeks – three  _ years _ , really.  She’d been instantly attracted to him the moment she laid eyes on him at the wedding.  But she’d never thought that dream would become a reality.

And yet, here they were.  If they’d been any closer, they’d have been naked, a “send your kids out of the room” story on the six o’clock news, and on their way to the brig for public indecency.

A smattering of applause and a couple of wolf whistles burst the bubble around them and effectively shoved them apart.  Any other time and place, Katie might have been able to ignore them and continue what had until that point been the best kiss of her life.

Instead, she hid inside her hoodie once more, trying and failing to mask a fit of giggles as Zaeed led her away from the building toward the nearest cabstand.    

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um... wow. So it's been awhile since I posted, sorry about that. But thanks so much for the oodles of kudos, comments, bookmarks, etc. Y'all are awesome!
> 
> That said, hope y'all enjoy :D

“So, what – besides me –  _ do _ you want to do tonight?” Katie stifled a giggle as her whispered question in the midst of the crowded shuttle caused Zaeed to inhale sharply and have a coughing fit.  She countered his eventual glare with a less-than-innocent grin.  “What?”

“You haven’t said a goddamn word since before we left Vancouver and  _ that’s _ how you chose to break the silence?” he grumbled, though there was no bite to his words.  

“Sorry.”

He snorted a laugh.  “No, you’re not.”

She shrugged.  “You started it.”

“So I did.”  He wrapped an arm around her and leaned in until his lips brushed against her hair.  He pressed a kiss just behind her ear, his voice pitched low and rough when he asked, “What do  _ you _ want, kitten?”

She shifted in her seat, pressing closer to him as a shiver of pleasure shot down her spine.  She’d started the conversation with no serious thought to their plans for the rest of the night, but now…  

Katie swore under her breath as her omni-tool went off, a series of text messages from her father, Jason, and one from Sarah, as dictated by Emma.  Thankfully, her ‘tool was only vibrating against her wrist, not chirping to annoy everyone in the shuttle.

“Ignore it.”  

She glanced at Zaeed.  “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.”

“That was different.”

“Only in that before it was vid-chat and this is text.”

He shrugged.  “Do what you want. But you answer that, everyone will know you’re done with your evaluations and you won’t get another goddamn moment’s peace.”

“You may have a point.” She was getting really sick of everybody being so logical.  “But they’re still gonna start bugging you if I don’t answer.”

“Let them try.” He pulled up the settings screen on his ‘tool and held it for her to see.  “Already on silent.  I’m not answering a damn thing for at least the next 18 hours.”

“Sure, that’ll work, for now.  ‘Til we get back to Solana Beach, then everybody’s gonna come running.”

“Well that just won’t work for me… for us,” he added in that same low voice.

Katie squirmed in her seat, trying to form coherent words to keep the conversation going.  “I… uh… San Diego!”

It was all she could manage.  Her brain had turned to mush.  She couldn’t think straight with all his little touches here and there, that voice that had never been sexier, and she feared she’d lose her sense entirely if she actually looked at him again.

The thumb that had been rubbing absent circles on her shoulder stopped and she could feel his eyes on her.  “What about San Diego?” 

What was it?  What the hell had been her point?  Oh, right.  “Just tell them we decided to go to a group meeting.  Or we could actually  _ go _ to a group meeting, and dinner, and then…”

“Sound like a plan to me,” Zaeed said softly.  He gently gripped her chin, turning her to face him.  “Is something wrong, kitten?”

She shook her head as much as was possible in her current position.  “Just hadn’t actually put much thought into anything past getting through the evaluations.”

He didn’t quite look like he believed her, but he said nothing, merely pressed his lips against hers for a moment and pulled her into his side.  She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, letting the hum and vibrations of the shuttle’s engines calm her frayed nerves.

* * *

> _ From: Katie _
> 
> _ To: Dad, Jason, Sarah _
> 
> _ Subj: I’m Fine _
> 
> _ I’m okay, okay?  Just thought it might be good to actually go to a meeting for once, before I can’t anymore.  Y’know? _
> 
> _ Same deal as the other times.  We’ll be back in the morning.  And yes, Dad, I promise I won’t be either drunk or hungover the next time I talk to you. _
> 
> _ And Sarah, please give Emma a hug from me, and tell her I’ll be by to see her tomorrow. _
> 
> _ -K _

* * *

The meeting went far better than Katie had expected; she seemed to be one of the more confident ones for once, which surprised the hell out of her, especially given how she’d been feeling for most of the afternoon and evening.  Dinner at a local cafe afterward seemed to fly by, in direct opposition to the previous three weeks, and before long, she and Zaeed were making their way to the hotel room they’d gotten for the night.

As soon as the door closed behind them, she pressed herself against the wall beside it and pulled him toward her, anticipating the glorious feel of his lips on hers once more.  

Instead, he stopped inches away, a concerned look on his face.  “You sure there’s nothing wrong?”

She tried to nod her head, that yes she was sure and would he hurry the fuck up and kiss her already, but she shook her head slightly.

“It's fine if you're nervous, kitten.” He ran a calloused thumb along her jaw but made no other move toward her.  “Hell, it's fine if you changed your mind entirely. I'm not going to push you.”

Katie shook her head again.  “I didn't change my mind.  But nervous?  Yeah, I guess you could say that.”  

Zaeed didn't say anything as he took her hand and led her over toward the couch.  He still made no move to crowd her, only left the space beside him open if she wanted it.  

It was infuriatingly endearing.  

For the moment, Katie decided standing would be best.  Pacing, even better.  She huffed in annoyance, at herself and her hesitation about everything related to Zaeed.

_ Fucking hell, woman.  Pull yourself together.  This is the only thing you've thought about for the last three weeks.  Don't back out now. _

“It's not you.”   _ Liar. _  “It's not  _ entirely _ you, and it's not your fault.  It's partly because it's been awhile since I've been with anyone.  And partly because it's you.”

Zaeed raised an eyebrow but remained ever silent.

More pacing.  “No, actually, it's not you, despite what my brain keeps trying to tell me.  It's anyone I've been with before, or even flirted with before.”  Katie flopped inelegantly on the opposite side of the couch.  “Nothing kills trying to get laid like being Admiral Hackett's daughter.” 

“Not really what I was expecting,” Zaeed said, “but understandable.  Nothing he’s done though, right?”

“Oh gods, no.  One sick fuck in this family is more than enough.”  Katie shuddered involuntarily and inched towards Zaeed.  “It's them, the lonely Alliance soldier hanging out in a bar on a Saturday night.  To them, I'm either intimidating by association or made out to be some grand prize.”  She sighed.  “And every so often, if I manage to get one who isn't like that, or I settle for one anyway because I’m desperate…”

“Something happens, even something small, and you get a flashback.” 

The minute fluctuations in his voice told her that he was speaking from experience.

Katie nodded and laid her head on Zaeed's hand, his fingers just in reach with his arm stretched out along the back of the couch.  “It's terrifying.  I get enough of it, reliving it in my nightmares; it's too much when it happens any other time,  _ especially _ during sex.”  She impatiently swiped the back of her hand across her face as tears prickled at the corners of her eyes. “And I don’t want it to happen with you.”

“I wish I could say it wouldn’t,” he murmured.  “But I can bloody guarantee I won’t react the way I’m imagining those other idiots did.”

“I know.”  She gave him a small smile as she slowly closed the space between them until she could reach her hand out and trace the scar running along the right side of his face.  “I'm glad I'm here with you and not out somewhere, looking for some random hookup.”

He put a hand over hers and turned her wrist to press a kiss to the pulse point.  “Me too, kitten.”

She tried to put more thoughts into words, but when nothing came out, she decided maybe the time for talking was over.  She felt heat rising on her cheeks and neck and further down something tightened in the pit of her stomach as she shifted around and straddled his lap.  

He raised an eyebrow, not questioning necessarily, but confirming.  “You sure?”

Katie let out a deep breath, ripped her hoodie and t-shirt off in one sharp movement, and smiled.  “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

One of Zaeed’s hands came up to cup her face, the other hot against the bare skin at her waist.  “Even joining the Alliance?”

Her smile widened to a grin.  “Even that.”  She carded her fingers through his hair and rested her forehead against his.  “I’m not gonna break, Z, and I’m not going to let fear from the past stand in the way of what I want anymore.  And right now,” she punctuated her last words with kisses between them, “I want you.”

He deepened the last kiss for a moment until she wriggled from his grasp and stood up, toeing her boots off as she walked backwards toward the bed.  When the backs of her thighs hit the side of the mattress, she sat down and crawled backwards until she could sprawl in what she prayed was a sexy pose in the middle of the bed.  

“Care to join me?” She hardly recognized her own voice, now sounding as though she spent her nights drinking Zaeed’s whiskey and smoking his cigars. “Or,” she slowly slid one hand across her bra-covered breasts and down her stomach to toy with the button on her jeans, “should I continue alone?”

“Don’t you bloody dare.”

She grinned at the strain in his voice and the noticeable bulge in his pants, at the knowledge that he wasn’t unaffected by her actions.  “Well if you intend to stop me…”  Her hand slid back up her torso to cup a breast; she locked eyes with Zaeed and gasped as she lightly pinched a nipple.

He shot to his feet and crossed the space between them in two strides.  “No more games,” he growled, the mattress dipping under his weight as he finally joined her on the bed, “no more goddamn teasing!”

All she could do was nod, her voice caught in her throat at the intensity of his gaze. 

For several moments, they simply lay together, neither of them moving, content just to be together.

Finally, Katie broke the silence, unable to resist more teasing.  She plucked at the collar of Zaeed’s button-down shirt and grinned.  “I think you’re just a bit overdressed for the occasion.”

One eyebrow rose.  “That so?”

She nodded and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.  “But I think I can fix the problem.”

He sat up and pulled her along with him.  “Then I’m all yours, kitten.”

Her heart thundered as she smoothed her hands across his chest and down his stomach to pull the shirt free from his jeans.  She straddled his legs and leaned in to kiss him, swiftly moving from his lips to his jaw and throat, continuing to his chest as she slowly unbuttoned his shirt.  

She warred with herself as she undressed him. On the one hand, she wanted to take her time, explore every scar and tattoo, every single inch of him.  On the other, she wanted to get him naked as quickly as possible because she was getting more turned on with every passing second.  She  _ needed _ this, needed  _ him _ .

Pushing the shirt off of his shoulders, she decided taking her time was best, for now. She skimmed her hands over his chest and abdomen, her tongue following to trace every tattoo, her lips kissing every scar.  

She glanced up when he flinched at the touch of her fingers on his left side, only an inch or two above the waistband of his jeans.

“Tickles,” he hissed.

She repeated the motion and he growled.

“What'd I say about teasing, kitten?”

She grinned unapologetically. “You've been teasing me all day, Z.  ‘S only fair.”

“Sure about that, are you?” 

She leaned up and lightly nipped his ear.  “Abso–” 

The rest of the word was lost in a squeal as he picked her up and flipped her onto the mattress, pinning her with his body.  One hand tangled in her hair as he brushed his lips over hers, pulling away whenever she attempted to deepen the kiss.  His other hand mirrored her own movements from moments before, skimming along her bare skin, looking for any ticklish spots.

When he got no reaction from her–he’d run over several spots, but she refused to give in–he moved on, replacing his hand with his lips and tongue, just as she’d done.  She moaned and arched into his touch, wanting to feel more of him, but he refused to give her what she wanted.  Instead, he took his sweet time, thoroughly exploring every inch of her from her shoulders to her breasts and down her abdomen to toy with but not undo the button on her jeans. 

Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore and resorted to begging. “Zaeed, please!” She tugged on his hair when he didn’t respond.  “I need you!”

She felt more than heard his responding chuckle against her stomach and yelped when he nipped a path back up her body.  

“No more teasing?” he said once they were face to face again, his lips hovering just above hers.

She shook her head.  “No more.”  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down into a searing kiss that left her a little lightheaded and giddy.  She nipped at his bottom lip and wiggled her hips.  “Pants off.  Now.”

Neither of them were exactly sure what happened next, only that it definitely wasn't what they'd intended.  One moment, he was pulling her closer to the edge of the bed and the next, they were in a heap on the floor, Zaeed swearing so loudly, Katie was surprised no one was banging on the wall.

“Are you okay, Z?” she asked as she rolled off to lay next to him on the floor.  

“Next time, no boots,” he grumbled, pulling one of hers out from under his head.

“Fair enough.”  She shifted down to help him untangle himself from his jeans boots, and giggled when she discovered her other boot in the mix.  “Definitely no more boots.”  She settled back against the side of the bed and pulled her own jeans off to add to the growing pile of clothes.  “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m just fine, kitten.” His voice was low and rough, and the look he gave her as he sat up and moved toward her sent a jolt of lust straight to her core.  “Now, where were we?”

**Author's Note:**

> Katie face reference: http://foofyschmoofer.tumblr.com/post/83144816897

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Friend Worth Fighting For](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3943813) by [CelticGrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticGrace/pseuds/CelticGrace)
  * [Prom Night at the Arcade](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11680206) by [CelticGrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticGrace/pseuds/CelticGrace)




End file.
